Judas Priest – ‘Ram It Down’ (1988) – Album Review (The Complete Albums Collection Series)

As you know, the Turbo album was supposed to be a double album, but the powers-that-be decided the band should only release a single disc album. That meant a lot of songs were scrapped. Well, at least four of those songs wound up on the band’s follow-up, ‘Ram It Down’. The rest of those songs wound up as Bonus tracks on the re-issues and a couple I don’t think have ever seen the light of day. Maybe someday we will hear them.

‘Ram It Down’ was recorded from December 1987 to March of 1988. It would finally be released on May 17, 1988 and would end up being the last album with drummer Dave Holland. There are a few people I know that were quite happy with that move as they always felt Dave’s drumming was a little on the lackluster side. The album would ship gold but only wound up going to #31 on the US Billboard Charts. The album was pretty heavy compared to Turbo, but the songs were no where near as strong and I believe most were disappointed with the end result. In fact, when we did the Nigel Tufnel Top 10 Judas Priest albums on The LeBrain Train several weeks back, none of the three guest even chose this album as one of their Top 10 if that clues you in on anything.

The album kicks off with the classic Halford scream and really slams it home with heavy thrash sounding drums and frantically flying fingers on guitar. The title track, “Ram It Down”, is doing just that. Slamming the fist down to show the world they weren’t a synthesizer band anymore. When compared to the rest of the album, this is one of the better tracks as it still has a little bite and a great dual guitar solo from Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing and man their fingers had to be smoking after the speed of those solos.

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Stryper – “Take It To The Cross” – Single Review

Now, Stryper, and Michael Sweet in particular, have released a lot of music lately.  Let’s look back over the last 5 years…

  • March 2013 – ‘The Second Coming’
  • November 2013 – ‘No More Hell to Pay’
  • January 2014 – Icon (greatest hits)
  • September 2014 – Live at the Whisky
  • October 2015 – Fallen

And Michael Sweet…

  • 2014 – ‘I’m Not Your Suicide’
  • 2015 – ‘Only to Rise’ as Sweet & Lynch
  • 2016 – ‘One Sided War’
  • 2017 – ‘Unified’ as Sweet & Lynch
  • 2017 – Sole: Songs and Stories From a Life in Music live concert video

That is 10 albums in 5 years.  That is quite a busy group.  I will admit that I have grown a little tired of Stryper as it is music overload.  I can’t absorb all that.  Now, it has all been great actually, but I felt like I needed a break.

On April 20th, Stryper brings us another new album called ‘God Damn Evil’ and my first thought was NOOOOO!!!  On the title, I am sure they will catch some grief for using that title (which will be for another discussion if I review the whole album), but it is ballsy and I think it might set the tone for what is to come on this album.

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Tuesday’s Memes – HEAVY METAL

No artists this week.  We are tackling a whole genre of music called Heavy Metal.  Maybe you have heard of it…I hope so.  If not, these won’t be funny at all to you.  Everyone likes it hard some times and with music, I do too.  So let’s have some fun with Heavy Metal.  I hope you enjoy!!

Hey Gene…trademark this!!

is-this-heavy-metal_o_703190

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