643. Crimson Glory / Crimson Glory. 1986. 3.5/5

I can honestly say that I had never heard of Crimson Glory up until about four months ago, when a fellow 80's metal head on a music forum somewhere asked me "have you heard Crimson Glory?" My negative response to this brought the inevitable urgent pushing that I should drop everything I was doing and get out there and get it. While I agreed that I would do so, it took me another couple of months to get around to finding said album.
When I first put it on, my immediate response to myself was "Why have I not heard about this album before now?!" It really is a mystery, because all of the elements that originally drew me to heavy metal are all here.

Had it been that I had discovered this album when it was released, all those years ago, it is quite possible, even probable, that I would be absolutely raving about the amazing positives of Crimson Glory and slapping a big five stars all across it. As it is, for the most part I have only positive things to say about it now.
The vocals and the guitars are the first things that hit you about this album. It is very easy to hear the influence that bands like Judas Priest and Queensrÿche had with Crimson Glory. the early songs such as "Valhalla" and "Dragon Lady" not only have that Queensrÿche melodic guitar sound in them, they are pumped full of not only the Judas Priest twin guitar assault, they have the vocals. Crimson Glory lead singer, Midnight (yes, that's correct, his name is Midnight) goes all out to be almost a Rob Halford clone. He hits notes as high, and as long, as almost no one but Halford could do in that age, and the similarities between them are quite obvious. This is not to suggest they are a clone band, but that influence really comes through in their songs.

I can't help but enjoy this album, and this is where the crux of the argument comes to play. Given the improvement in production, this would sound so much better if it was recorded today. And the problem of discovering an album now that I really should have back in the days of 1986 means it is now being marked against all of the albums I've had since then, but have listened to half a million times, compared to the dozen I have now listened to Crimson Glory. As I stated within here, I really believe if I had had this album for that length of time, it would be getting a extremely positive ratings result. As it is, I like this a lot, but on a comparable scale across all my albums, it falls short of the great ones.