When it comes to metal, there are fewer albums more massive than Judas Priest‘s iconic 1982 album Screaming for Vengeance. The album kicks off with the binary-paired assault of “The Hellion” and “Electric Eye.” The two songs are so powerful that they served as the opening for almost every Priest concert for nearly 30 years.

Watch Judas Priest perform “The Hellion” and “Electric Eye” here below.

In honor of the 40th anniversary this past week of Judas Priest‘s debut album Rocka Rolla, this Massive Metal Monday is a song from that landmark release. Here are the metal gods themselves with “Never Satisfied.”

Watch the band performing “Never Satisfied” live here below.

Judas Priest
Redeemer of Souls
Epic/Columbia Records
CD | Deluxe CD | MP3
Release date: July 8, 2014

Judas Priest Lose A Founding Member, Deliver Their Best Record in Nearly 25 Years With Redeemer Of Souls

You know, I am a very big fan of Judas Priest, so much so that I have both the band’s iconic trident symbol and the album title Defenders of the Faith permanently inked on my arms. So, when founding guitarist K.K. Downing announced in 2011 that he would be retiring from Judas Priest, I really felt gutted. Surely this would be the end of the “Metal Gods!” But alas, our heroes decided to soldier on by replacing Downing with new guitarist Richie Faulkner (previously of the Lauren Harris band, daughter of Steve Harris of Iron Maiden), who is nearly 3 decades their junior. This sounded like an idea as ill advised as when the band tried to replace irreplaceable singer Rob Halford for a couple of albums around the turn of the millennium with Tim “˜Ripper’ Owens, a very skilled Halford imitator whom the band discovered singing in an Ohio-based Priest tribute band (this event even served as the inspiration for the Mark Walberg/Jennifer Anniston movie Rock Star). Owens is a perfectly capable singer, but is also nearly two decades younger than the rest of the band and the albums that he appeared on with Priest are mostly forgettable and serve merely as a footnote in the band’s career. Halford returned to the fold in the mid 2000s and Priest has since released two somewhat uneven offerings (2005’s Angel of Retribution and the double concept album Nostradamus in 2008) featuring a handful of great songs.

Rob Halford is the Metal God, and with good reason. The lead singer of metal legends Judas Priest, currently on their final tour entitled Epitaph, recently had a bit of a fall off his motorcycle onstage, when riding on during the band’s performance of “Hell Bent For Leather.” The true metal professional that he is, Halford gets right back up again and continues kicking it with the band onstage. View video footage of the incident at the bottom of this post.

Judas Priest has released a new promo image on their Facebook page highlighting their new line-up for their upcoming tour — and you can see the larger version at the bottom of this post. As previously reported here, the band announced their final tour, which they’ve titled The Farewell EPITAPH World Tour.

Following this announcement, it was revealed that guitarist K.K. Downing had formally retired from the band and will not be joining them on tour. Stepping into Downing’s shoes for the tour will be Richie Faulkner, who previously performed with Lauren Harris, daughter of Steve Harris from Iron Maiden.

Downing recently also released a formal statement on his official website regarding his retirement.