Judas Priest – Stained Class (LP Vinyl)

Released in 1978, *Stained Class* arrived as Judas Priest were sharpening their sound into something harder and faster than anything the British heavy metal scene had yet produced. Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing's twin-guitar interplay reaches a kind of cold, relentless precision here, with tracks like "Exciter" pointing directly toward the speed metal that would define the next decade.