"...To put it bluntly, Defenders makes me proud to be a metalhead. It’s such a stylistically diverse album, running the gamut of nearly every approach Priest had tackled up until that point, yet cohesive, each cut seamlessly flowing from one to the next. It so shamelessly embodies the spirit of metal at the time, before the barrage of subgenres and individual scenes came into play. Everyone was united (pun fully intended) by the power of metal, and were sure to let you know so in the loudest, boldest, and brashest way possible. Forget songs; these were anthems."

- Defenders of the Faith