ALBUM REVIEW : Priest’s ‘Painkiller’ Offers Little Relief

* 1/2 Judas Priest, “Painkiller.” Columbia. “Painkiller” was recorded before Judas Priest had the Kafkaesque experience of being tried for the insane acts of others. But judging from the overwhelmingly mindless evidence at hand, it’s doubtful that anything, even a surrealism check in a Nevada courtroom, is capable of jarring this veteran British heavy-metal band into actual thought.

Imagine “RoboCop” without the plot and visuals, and you’ve got “Painkiller”--all violent rampage, no point. After a while, all the allusions to blood and steel and avenging metal monsters run together, and you wonder whether you’re listening to music or flipping through one of those slick, gore-and-glory comic books. Oh, there’s some metal apocalypse stuff about good stamping out evil, but the lyrics are far too dim to have any allegorical or symbolic resonance.

Priest gives decent headbanger value on the album (due in stores Tuesday), what with Rob Halford’s warrior screams, plenty of molten guitar ejaculations and hyper-driven rhythm chugs copped from old Deep Purple. Why bother with this stuff, though, when younger, better metal bands like Metallica and Suicidal Tendencies are busy driving ideas worth considering into the heads they bang?

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to five stars (a classic).