Judas Priest are reissuing Sad Wings of Destiny in its fiftieth year, in two forms: Original 1976 Masters and Remixed & Remastered.
Both restore something the record has not had since it came out. The band's intended sequence begins with Prelude, the instrumental, and runs the songs in the order they envisaged; the version the world has known for fifty years is not that. Fixing a running order is a smaller thing than a remix and often a larger one.
Original 1976 Masters comes off the original analog master tapes, kept in storage for decades, remastered for the anniversary. It adds the 1976 version of Diamonds And Rust, recorded in the same sessions, and carries liner notes by Bryan Reesman and archival photographs nobody has seen. The vinyl is hand poured, so no two copies match.
The album was made by Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton, K.K. Downing, Ian Hill and Alan Moore, and it is where Rocka Rolla's promise turned into purpose. Victim Of Changes and The Ripper came off it, and both were in the set on this summer's Faithkeepers tour, fifty years later.