Judas Priest
Turbo 30
Sony/Legacy
by David Chiu
If there is a Judas Priest album that really sounded like it was made in the ’80s, it would be the band’s 10th studio album, 1986’s Turbo. With its use of guitar synthesizers into their brand of heavy metal, Turbo was sleek, modern-sounding and glossy—somewhat similar to what ZZ Top did starting with their 1983 breakthrough hit album Eliminator. It has been written that Turbo is a somewhat polarizing album among Judas Priest fans divided over the group’s direction at the time. In retrospect, while the tracks appeared to make a bid for mainstream accessibility, they were by no means pop metal as it was still unrelentingly punishing, as in the case of tracks like the mid-tempo sinister “Out in the Cold”; the rebellious “Wild Nights”; the anthemic “Hot and Crazy Days”; the headbanging “Reckless”; and the punkish “Rock You All Around the World.” The electronic textures even add to the danceable grooves of some of the other songs, including the record’s popular cut “Turbo Lover” and “Locked In”; the band also took aim at its critics and detractors during the PMRC controversy with the song “Parental Guidance.” Turbo may have not been on the same league compared to earlier benchmarks like British Steel and Screaming for Vengeance, but it still showed the band at its prime peak. Now repackaged as Turbo 30 to mark a 30th anniversary milestone, this reissue contains both the original album and a two-disc live set from a 1986 Kansas City show during the group’s Fuel for Life tour; it addition to performances of songs from the the then-new Turbo album, this fierce-sounding recording features a lot of Priest’s popular songs , including “Living After Midnight,” “Freewheel Burning,” “Some Heads Are Gonna Roll,” “Victim of Changes “ and “Hell Bent for Leather.”
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