Judas Priest’s 1974 debut, Rocka Rolla, could be viewed as one of the most underrated albums in hard-rock history. Maybe the album’s been overlooked by so many because Judas Priest have become known as the forefathers of the heavy metal genre, and Rocka Rolla is at its core a heavy blues-rock album. Or “progressive blues” — to borrow a subgenre term from the early 1970s. But the Hendrix-y guitar playing of K.K. Downing and the out worldly operatic vocals from Rob Halford gave the album a gleam that many bands of that ilk didn’t have at the time.
Fifty years on, you’ll find Rocka Rolla to be a damn good album. Straight-forward rockers like “One for the Road,” “Cheater” and the title track would fall right in line with any…
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Goldmine (Digital) - 1 Issue, Winter 2024