JUDAS PRIEST released their twelfth studio album, "Painkiller," across Europe on September 17th, 1990, through Columbia. Chris Tsangarides co-produced it with the band at Miraval Studios in France and Wisseloord in the Netherlands, and the record arrived months after the band had been cleared in the widely reported subliminal messages trial in Reno. New drummer Scott Travis, replacing Dave Holland, changed everything: the title track opens with a drum figure that functions as a statement of intent, and the whole album moves at a speed the band had never sustained before. Rob Halford sang higher and harder than he had in a decade, while Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing pushed the twin-guitar attack toward outright speed metal. It was Halford's last JUDAS PRIEST album until "Angel of Retribution" in 2005, and it remains their most ferocious.
