Judas Priest

After the last Judas Priest album and tour was over, talk turned to the next album. I remember hearing shortly after the last tour was done that the next album would be a concept album about the famed prophesier, Nostradamus. My immediate thought upon hearing that is "What kind of crap is that?" After the final track of the last album was a 10 minute, mostly unlistenable song about the Loch Ness Monster, I feared for what an entire album would sound like, since I heard something that Loch Ness was a "good intro for what we are thinking of doing with Nostradamus. My thoughts lept to this image:

Still, I'm not the kind of fan who will immediately go "OK, this will be crap" and prejudge it 16 months before it came out. So I kind of forgot about it until about a month before it came out. Started hearing them on things like Eddie Trunk's shows, in advertisments, etc. OK, it's coming out - and it's a double album. I listened to it with an open mind, and the only review I can think of to give it is this image:

Judas Priest is reset to the way they were in 1990 when Painkiller came out. Rob Halford is back in the band, and while I enjoyed the stuff they did with Tim Owens, he wasn't quite Rob Halford. In early 2005 Angel of Retribution comes out, and it's a classic return to form for Priest. This sounds like what would have come after Defenders of the Faith if we could have stopped them making Turbo. :) Anyway, it's a good mix of the classic Vengeance/British Steel feel of Priest, mixed in with the much harder stuff (like Painkiller) that came afterwards. A good metal album, lots of solid stuff. The single Revolution took some flak from "Priest purists", saying it was too commercial. Bah - some of their greatest hits are commercial in nature (..Got another thing coming, Living after Midnight). Everything on the album is listenable, except for one track - the last one. Lochness. It's yes, about the Loch Ness Monster, and it's really long, and in my opinion really bad. I didn't care for that track at all, but fortunately, it's the last one the CD. The only downside I can think of is there's no "killer app" track - no track that will stand out as one of the all time Priest classics. But what is here is good solid metal in the Judas Priest tradition. The disc is definitely worth a pickup - no doubt about that, especially if you've been a Priest fan in the past.

And speaking of "CD", I bought this as one of those new DualDisc discs. It's got a "CD" on one side, and a DVD side on the other. The DVD side has some footage from a concert they played in 2004, as well as new interviews with the band that were nice, plus the album in 5.1 Surround sound. The "CD" side has the album as it would appear on a normal CD. I say "CD" side, because technically these dual discs aren't really CD's - it's close, but not quite. As such, there's some players that won't play it. The CD drive in my home computer doesn't play it, and the CD player in my truck doesn't - the latter being fairly annoying. I like the idea from a value added standpoint, but from a personal reality standpoint, it bugs me that I can't play it on two of my CD players. :(

Priest's first studio album in 7 years, and first with new singer Tim Owens. He definitely has the lungs to fill the seat of Priest lead vocalist. The album, however, isn't the greatest. There are some great songs here (Jugulator & Cathedral Spires are amongst Priest's best ever work with Jugulator possibly being their loudest and fastest song ever). However, the album doesn't gel for me. There's several I like, but I can't really sit through the entire album at once. I borrowed their next album (Demolition) from a friend, and that was basically more of the same - a few good tracks, but that's about it.

Not a whole lot to say about this one. Double CD set of Judas Priest's greatest hits. :)

The final album that Judas Priest did with Rob Halford, and it's a doozie. This is by far the heaviest and loudest album that Priest did with Halford as vocalist. The opening track just shreds, and it doesn't really let up at all. If you like metal or hard rock at all, then you should check this out.

I did buy the studio albums between Defenders and this one, but never upgraded them to CD. Turbo was mostly weak, although I loved the title track, Ram it Down was harder than the weak Turbo, but not terribly spectacular (and had an atrocious cover of Johnny B Goode), and a live album in there I just passed on.

But about Painkiller - it's spectacular, something that should have directly followed Defenders, I think.

My personal favorite Judas Priest album. Most people have their album before this (Screaming for Vengeance) as their favorite, but I love this one. One of the few unabashedly "Heavy Metal" bands out there, Priest really wails on this disc, and still holds up for me almost 20 years later. The album also means a lot to me personally as I have a friend from high school who I haven't seen in well over 12 years who used to listen to this album with me a lot - we'd both do the air guitar thing to it. That aside, there's some great metal on here.

I did own a few of their albums before this on tape (Screaming for Vengeance, British Steel, & Sin After Sin), but never got 'em on CD.

This is one of those albums that I knew most of the songs off of, but never actually bought before. When I was home visiting family, I bought this at a Borders Books in Allison Park, PA (a suburb of Pittsburgh). I probably didn't really NEED it, but I was caught up in "I'm on vacation, let's buy stuff!" fever. :)

Anyway, it's a classic album. Metal Gods, Breaking the Law, Grinder, Living After Midnight.. All Priest classics. This album, along with Black Sabbath's Heaven & Hell, plus AC/DC's Back in Black made for one hell of a year in metal (1980). This particular version of the album was part of Priest's remastering series released in 2001, and features two songs not on the original album.

If you're buying Priest albums, you can't go wrong here.