If you're a metalhead who has never experienced the bombastic, -influenced pleasures of , it's best to cut to the chase and go directly to the British headbangers' most essential and enduring output. That means skipping 's inferior work and starting out with its early recordings. 1981's is 's best album, but 1982's (which / reissued on CD in the early '90s) runs a close second. When guitarist , drummer , and the -influenced lead singer rip into such blistering, ferocious classics as and you're hearing a band that was very much in its prime and had yet to lose any of its freshness, imagination, or vitality. Collectors and completists will want 's recordings despite their problems, but for beginners, are definitely the gems to start out with. ~ Alex Henderson