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Point of Entry is the seventh studio album from Judas Priest and marks one of the first derailments in what had been a stellar run of albums prior to its release in 1981. Priest got a real taste of success with 1980's British Steel, an album on which they took their metal roots in a more commercial direction and watched tracks like "Living After Midnight" and "Breaking the Law" crack radio playlists all over the world. Looking to repeat that success, they went even further into commercial territory with Point of Entry.

Almost every metal fan has heard this album's hit, "Heading Out to the Highway," at one time or another. It was clearly written in the vein of "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight" with the same style of chorus, bridge, and twin guitars. It is an average Priest song but was a top 10 hit in the U.S. After that, the Priest fan is going to have to look hard to find much to like. "Don't Go" sounds like an idea for a chorus that the band hung a drab riff on to make it a song while "Turning Circles" has an awful opening riff that might as well be reggae and a dull performance from Halford. "Desert Plains" and "Solar Angels" are better. Both are subdued tracks that nevertheless have a lot of atmosphere due to the hypnotic riff on "Plains" and flanged guitar on "Angels." Much of the rest of Point of Entry sounds like the band was listening to too much southern rock and it infiltrated their songwriting in a big way. Horrible vocal lines on "Troubleshooter" and Lynyrd Skynyrd-esque blues progressions on "All the Way" make them nearly unlistenable. "You Say Yes" is just crap, plain and simple. The sound on Point of Entry is fine, in line with the albums on either side (British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance) but that can't save it from the intentionally limp songwriting and general lack of metal anywhere on the album.

For some fans, Priest's career fell off after Stained Class, but many like me find solid music on Hell Bent for Leather and British Steel. Point of Entry, on the other hand, tested us all and it was only the excellent Screaming for Vengeance that followed it that allowed most of us to move on after what we thought at the time was a one-off blip. Priest's career would continue to swing between highs (Defenders of the Faith, Painkiller) and lows (Turbo, the Ripper albums, Nostradamus) but the band continues to soldier on and there is plenty of great music to enjoy from their lengthy catalog, but very little of it is on Point of Entry.