by Greg Prato

Although the 1998 Judas Priest compilation, Living After Midnight, did a fine job of collecting the cream of Halford and Co., the expanded 2003 Best of the Best: Gold edition may even be better. For starters, you get a few more 'early tracks' (the underrated cover, "Better by You, Better Than Me," the surprise U.K. hit single, "Take on the World," and the similarly styled anthem, "United"), as well as latter-day material (the popular MTV video, "Locked In," and one of Priest's most vicious tunes, "Painkiller"). And as with its predecessor, Best of the Best: Gold includes all the expected headbanging classics: "The Green Manalishi," "You've Got Another Thing Coming," "Breaking the Law," "Electric Eye," "Freewheel Burning," and more. Sure, we could have done without the god-awful cover of "Johnny B Goode," and the dated synth-metal of "Turbo Lover" (especially when it could have easily been replaced with much stronger material -- "Heading Out to the Highway," "Don't Go," "Love Bites," "Grinder," "Sinner," etc.), but by and large, this refurbished version of Living After Midnight improves on the original. A fine place to start discovering the metallic wonders of the mighty Priest.