Label URL: www.legacyrecordings.com

Band URL: www.judaspriest.com

Arguments can be made about who is the quintessential heavy metal band but you can be certain that Judas Priest would be on the receiving end of a fair amount of the votes. With their awesome twin axe attack and the ‘Metal-God’ behind the microphone, they have created a plethora of treasured hits over their illustrious career. The box set, Metalogy, attempts to capture a lifetime worth of material and overall does a nice job of presenting a complete package for Priest fans. The packaging is stellar as the 4 CD and 1 DVD set comes in a leather-bound box surrounded by metal studs. Inside is a very nice book with tons of band pictures from past to present and a decent, but abbreviated, timeline of the band’s history. I’m sure even the most diehard Priest fan will discover a fact or two here that they never knew. As for the music cd’s, they’re really a mixed bag. One positive is that all the tracks are remastered, so "Tyrant" sounds as full and equal in loudness to "Painkiller" despite the time difference between releases. This ought to make creating your own mixes a little easier without having to tinker with the volume control between tracks. The track selection is also a very comprehensive set that represents every album, including the disappointing Ripper era, with very few hits not making the final cut. The down sides are that every Judas Priest fan is sure to have every one of these albums already and the box set offers very little in new material. What few new tracks that were included ("Heart of a Lion") are poor offerings that should have stayed on the cutting room floor, and another quality track should have been substituted. Give me the remastered "Fever" over "Heart of a Lion" any day. I find it hard to believe that after all these years together, Priest didn’t have more unreleased gems to offer their fans. It’s almost as if the box set was directed more towards newbies rather than their lifelong dedicated fan base. Making up for this slight inadequacy is the never before released DVD from the Screaming For Vengeance tour. While the concert was previously available on VHS, the DVD image quality has been enhanced, and more importantly, Dolby 5.1 sound has been added. The Dolby surround version of this show is almost worth the price of admission alone. The concert set list is stellar since it captures the band at the peak of their metal stardom. Rob Halford’s voice stands out in the mix and at times you almost forget this was recorded over 20 years ago. It’s super cool to see footage of the band from that time period. Taken as a whole, the box sets is a worthy purchase if you don’t have the entire Priest catalog already or really want the DVD.

The Bottom Line: Dedicated fans might be put off by the price for this box set since it really contains no new music. For some, the classic concert DVD culled from the height of the band’s career is worth the price since the audio quality is superb. Anybody with a passing interest in Judas Priest should seriously consider adding this to their collection.