Crusader

Carrere, 1984

It was with the Crusader album that Saxon’s glory years ended. It sold a reported two million copies worldwide, and after it the band’s career went into a steep decline.

The material on Crusader ranged from the brilliant to the banal. The title track is among Saxon’s greatest epics, as grandiose as the cover art it inspired. And in a completely different mood, there’s a boisterous version of Sweet’s Set Me Free, one of the glam rockers’ meatiest numbers.

But in knucklehead songs such as Rock City, there was a whiff of self-parody. Coincidentally, This Is Spinal Tap was also released in ’84.