Judas Priest - British Steel

Judas Priest's British Steel is heavy metal stripped down to its leanest, most anthemic form, pressed here on heavyweight 180-gram vinyl.

Released in 1980, the band's sixth studio album was recorded at Ringo Starr's Tittenhurst Park estate with producer Tom Allom, and it was their first with drummer Dave Holland. Priest trimmed the epic sprawl of their seventies records into tight, punchy songs built for radio and arenas, a shift that helped turn them into one of the genre's defining bands.

Breaking the Law packs an entire rebel anthem into barely two and a half minutes, while Living After Midnight is a gleeful, fist-pumping party song that became a staple of their live shows. Metal Gods marches forward on a mechanical, menacing groove, and Rapid Fire opens the album at a velocity that pointed the way for the thrash bands to come.

Rob Halford's soaring vocals and the twin-guitar partnership of K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton are razor sharp throughout, and Holland's steady, no-frills drumming gives every riff a solid floor to stand on.

For metal fans, this is the moment Priest's sound crystallized into something iconic, razor-blade cover and all, and more than four decades later it still hits like a sledgehammer.