JUDAS PRIEST

PAGE UPDATED IN 2020

Reviewed:
- Rocka Rolla (1974)
- Sad Wings of Destiny (1976)
- Sin After Sin (1977)
- Stained Class (1978)
- Killing Machine (1978)
- Unleashed in the East (1979, live album)
- British Steel (1980)
- Hero, Hero (1981, compilation)
- Point of Entry (1981)
- Screaming for Vengeance (1982)
- Defenders of the Faith (1984)
- Turbo (1986)
- Priest...Live! (1987, live album)
- Ram It Down (1988)
- The Collection (1989, compilation)
- Painkiller (1990)

- Fight: War of Words (1993)

- Glenn Tipton: Baptizm of Fire (1997)
- Jugulator (1997)

- 'Bullet Train' / 'Blood Stained' (1997, promotional CD)
- '98 Live Meltdown (1998, live album)

- 2wo: Voyeurs (1998)

- Halford: Resurrection (2000)
- Demolition (2001)

- Halford: Crucible (2002) 
- Live in London (2003, live album)
- Angel of Retribution (2005)
- Nostradamus (2008)
- Collections (2008, compilation)
- A Touch of Evil - Live (2009, live album)
- Setlist: The Very Best of Judas Priest Live (2010, compilation)

- Halford: Halford IV - Made of Metal (2010)

- Epitaph (Blu-Ray video)
- Redeemer of Souls (2014)
- Battle Cry (2016, live album)
- Firepower (2018)

- KK's Priest: Sermons of the Sinner (2021)

- KK's Priest: The Sinner Rides Again (2023)

- Invincible Shield (2024)


ROCKA ROLLA          1974          (Gull)

- Standouts: 'One for the Road', 'Rocka Rolla', 'Winter/Deep Freeze/Winter Retreat', 'Cheater', 'Never Satisfied', 'Run of the Mill' 

People like to ignore Rocka Rolla, Judas Priest's debut LP, presumably because it isn't as metal as basically anything that would come later. Well, it doesn't feature a lot of the traits that you'd think makes a metal band a metal band. Thing is, this was 1974, and metal in 1974 was bluesy, it was proggy - and that's why Rocka Rolla has more in common with Budgie, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Thin Lizzy etc., than it does the stereotypical leather n' spikes, over-the-top, uber-metal image that Priest cemented with albums like Killing Machine, British Steel and Screaming for Vengeance. When you look at the debut in retrospect, it's a perfectly feasible early-to-mid 70's heavy metal album. I'm not going to argue that it's one of their best outputs - it's not, but it is a genuinely good and underrated album in my opinion, and certainly in the same league as a lot of the records said bands were recording around the same time (well, except maybe Sabbath, 'cos they were in a league of their own). But even the first Sabbath album was incredibly bluesy!

Still, Priest had a lot going for them. They had two great guitar players - Glenn Tipton and KK Downing, and it was still pretty rare for heavy bands to even feature two guitarists back then. They also had a solid and frankly unsung bass player, Ian Hill, who, aside from Glenn Tipton, is the only member to have played on every Priest record. Then they had Rob Halford - or 'Bob' Halford as my CD version incorrectly states for some reason - on vocals, and Rob's probably the best METAL vocalist of all time in my opinion. People will argue to their heart's content over who's the best out of Rob, Bruce Dickinson or Ronnie James Dio in terms of the best metal vocalist, but Rob just about takes the throne for me. The highs he hits are insane, and his screeches and snarls are about as metal as you can get - maybe not so much on Rocka Rolla, but certainly later down the line. Well, really I think Ian Gillan is the best, but in terms of sheer metalness (if that's even a word?!), Rob is king. Hell, he holds the nickname 'Metal God', so he must be doing something right! They also had John Hinch on drums, who's just... well, some guy on drums! Priest had a revolving door for drummers in the 70's and this arguably inspired all the dying drummers in Spinal Tap.

In terms of the actual music on here, I like it all, pretty much. It's mostly very good. 'One for the Road' is a very bluesy opener, and it's catchy. Not as catchy as it's title track and follow-up however, which features a really catchy chorus and some super-cool - if a little cheesy - twin guitar melodies! 'Winter', 'Deep Freeze' and 'Winter Retreat' are basically a single song that merge and fade in and out of each other. 'Winter' is kinda atmospheric to begin with, but goes into a heavy 70's metal riff that continues in 'Deep Freeze'. 'Winter Retreat' has a hint of psychedelia that a lot of bands still hadn't shuck off at this point - a load of feedback sounds - but it does eventually end with a nice, albeit short ballad that showcases Rob's versatility as a vocalist. This is a man that can easily handle all the soft, namby-pamby balladry with ease on top of all the heavy shit. 'Cheater' is a short but sweet and heavy track with a great riff. 'Never Satisfied' is more straight-up 70's heavy metal goodness, with some great melodies that stick in your head. 'Run of the Mill' is probably the album's centrepiece, an underappreciated prog metal gem that deserves more attention. This is a powerful and lengthy track that deserves to be thrown in with other prog metal classics of the era, like Deep Purple's 'Child in Time' and Rainbow's 'Stargazer'. It's not as good as those tracks - not many songs are - but it is a classic. 'Dying to Meet You' is lacking a bit in the metal department, but it's a serviceable ballad and Rob once again approaches his vocals differently, this time going for a deeper tone. 'Caviar and Meths' is a filler instrumental that ends the album, but it is only a couple of minutes long, and it's harmless.

This is not my original review. Originally I gave this a 7.5, but having just listened to it again for the first time in a while, I was honestly finding it difficult to pick holes even if the majority of these tracks aren't especially ground-breaking. 'Run of the Mill' is excellent, 'Rocka Rolla' is good fun, 'Never Satisfied' (the only song I've seen 'em play live from this album - Epitaph Tour 2011...) is very solid metal of it's time, 'Cheater' is still heavy stuff... even the whole 'Winter' trilogy thingy is pretty cool. So it's now an eight from me then. Even though Rocka Rolla isn't exactly the path they stuck to, it is still a great album when you look at the metal scene of the time. It's an album I feel needs more acknowledgement from fans, critics, even the band themselves, and you should at least check it out just to see how far this band had come when compared to Painkiller and the like. A classic.

From the looks of things, this album has been reissued many times. Mine is a 2003 reissue from a label called Snapper Classics, and for some reason features 'Diamonds and Rust', from 1977's Sin After Sin, as a bonus track. The booklet features both album covers - the original 1974 Coca-Cola bottlecap parody (which every band member seems to really despise), and when you turn it over, the 1984 reissue cover. I personally like the original one. The 1984 updated cover has the old Priest gothic font, sure, but what the hell is this thing even supposed to be?! Some kind of mechanized flying, half-man half... lizard? Riding a torpedo bomb, wielding some kind of futuristic sword?! Seriously, check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocka_Rolla!
Adam's rating: 8.2/10

SAD WINGS OF DESTINY          1976          (Gull)

- Standouts: The whole album! 

I find it a bit weird that people always forget about Rocka Rolla, yet Sad Wings of Destiny, it's follow-up, is usually regarded as a genuine heavy metal classic, sometimes a masterpiece. Yep, these people aren't wrong - I totally agree that Sad Wings is easily one of the best albums of the 70's in it's field; fuck it, it's one of the best metal albums of all time. However, I kinda get the impression that a lot of critics seem to think it was a huge leap forward for the band compared to the debut LP, and I feel that's why Rocka Rolla is usually so overlooked and often not even considered to be a metal album full-stop. I can't deny that the musicianship has improved across the board, but Rocka Rolla didn't sound amateur anyway. The songs kick-ass on Sad Wings; the riffs are way better for sure, but they aren't that much more metal than the debut album's riffs. I actually find some of the riffs on 'Victim of Changes', 'Island of Domination' and 'Tyrant' - all incredible tracks, by the way - to still be comparable sonically and structurally to some of the riffs in 'Cheater', 'Winter', 'Run of the Mill' etc., from the previous album. What I'm saying is, Priest were always metal!

But like I was saying, things are just better on all fronts here, period. Even if a lot of the riffs aren't massively heavier than Rocka Rolla, the production is better and makes them sound heavier overall, and Rob Halford's vocals certainly have gotten a lot better in such a short space of time. He sounded great, even in 1974, but as soon as you give this LP a spin and the album kicks off with 'Victim of Changes', it's clear that Halford is a force to be reckoned with as a vocalist. The very first line of 'Victim' and the entire album ("Whiskey woman don't you know that you are driving me INSANNNNNNEEEEEE OWWWWWWW!!!") is even sang with such power and intensity that really goes to show metal - a genre some people like to poke fun of in terms of vocalists - does have some of the best singers of all time among it's ranks. 'The Ripper' is cheesy as hell lyrically, but I wouldn't have it any other way. And the music was ahead of it's time, like 'Run of the Mill' was. 'Dreamer Deceiver' is a melodic ballad with nice solos from Tipton and Downing and a spot-on vocal performance. Not very Priest-like in the overall sense, but certainly Priest-like when talking about 70's Priest. It leads into the chugging 'Deceiver' however, which is pure METAL! Same with 'Tyrant', a song that is still played live to this day, just like 'Victim of Changes' and 'The Ripper'. 'Genocide' and 'Island of Domination' don't get enough credit, probably because they're bluesier than the rest of the songs, but as I said in the last review, 70's metal was largely bluesy around this period, and the main riff in 'Island' kicks some serious butt, so who cares. 'Epitaph' is a 100% piano-driven ballad (!), maybe a shock on first inspection, but even Sabbath had a piano ballad in 1972 with 'Changes' - and since Rob can actually sing unlike Ozzy, I like it.

And that's Sad Wings of Destiny - it uses a lot of the same formulas created on the solid Rocka Rolla, but perfects them. Every band member had upped their game, everyone performs better, and the tracks are just better across the board. It is as good as everyone says it is, and since I'm a little biased with my opinion of Judas Priest (they were my favourite band in the world when I was a Sixth Form student), I'd say it's even better. 10/10 is quite a score to give anything, but there's just something about 70's rock n' roll that really does something for me. The production in those days was so much more organic and live-sounding, and of all the albums in my collection that I'd give a 10/10, I'll bet around 80%+ of them were recorded in the 70's. So yeah, this is an album that for me displays metal at it's very best, and what it really represents. It's not necessarily THE best metal album in the world, but it's up there. 
Adam's rating: 10/10

SIN AFTER SIN          1977          (Columbia)

- Standouts: All of 'em.

I've always considered Sin After Sin to be a slight progression of Sad Wings of Destiny, some of it could of fit on Sad Wings, but there are enough subtle updates to the metallic aspect of the music that it still sounds very much like it was recorded afterwards. The production (courtesy of Roger Glover of Deep Purple!) is maybe a tad slicker here, but still very much a 1970's affair, and that's a good thing. As for the songs, well, they're amazing once again. 'Sinner' is another lengthy and incredible opener that almost sits among the realm of speed metal; it doesn't quite reach those levels, but it certainly plays a part in the development of what was to become 'speed metal' in coming years. The main riff in this track is played in a way that I consider to be the signature Priest guitar-sound. If you were to write a generic riff in the same vein of Judas Priest, it'd probably sound like 'Sinner', and that's not a bad thing considering this was the first album to really have that sound in the first place. It's hard to explain, but I know what I'm talking about! Except this is Priest, so it's better. 

'Diamonds and Rust' was actually a Joan Baez track originally, which obviously means it's has something of a pop quality to it. Yet somehow, it really does work among the rest of the tracklisting, and it's not like the last couple of records didn't have their ballads or anything. 'Starbreaker' is some soaring 70's heavy metal goodness - this track is a bit more in-your-face than usual with it's riffs. There's little in the way of trying to be progressive or anything like that, and some the riffs on this one sound like they could've fit on later albums. 'Last Rose of Summer' is a bluesier, more mellow radio-friendly song, but it's a good one. 'Let Us Pray/Call for the Priest' starts off with some nice vocal harmonies, but the rest of the track is very much kick-ass maximum metal and to me actually hints at the heavy metal boom in the UK during the late 70's/early 80's, known as the 'New Wave of British Heavy Metal' - it also has a guitar harmony part in the middle that reminds me of Thin Lizzy. Next you've got 'Raw Deal', which is a heavy and bluesy metaller. The balladry doesn't end yet, 'cos 'Here Come the Tears' is very much a ballad, but it's definitely a ROCK ballad as it does have it's heavy climax towards the end. Sorta reminds me of early Iron Maiden at that point, not sure why, but it does. 'Dissident Aggressor' is the heaviest thing on here - Slayer covered it, and for good reason. It chugs along, and it's probably my favourite track behind 'Sinner' on this record.

Another amazing LP then. The heavy songs on Sin After Sin ('Sinner', 'Starbeaker', 'Call for the Priest', 'Dissident Aggressor') are heavier than the heaviest songs on Sad Wings of Destiny, yet at the same time, it also features a bit more radio-friendly experimentation and balladry ('Here Come the Tears', 'Diamonds and Rust', 'Last Rose of Summer'). Nearly every track is a classic, though I do find it to be slightly more inconsistent than the predecessor. 'Raw Deal' is very good, but is definitely noticeably weaker than the rest of the album. Either way, it's still a fantastic album. My vinyl copy is an early pressing, and it's still sealed in shrinkwrap! 
Adam's rating: 9.3/10 

STAINED CLASS           1978          (Columbia)

- Standouts: Everything, once again. 

Sooo... Rocka Rolla - a solid start. Sad Wings of Destiny - similar formula, perfected. Sin After Sin - a little more diverse; some new sounds - not always perfect, but still brilliant. And now 1978's Stained Class, an album that I can firmly call another masterpiece. Not sure if 'firmly calling' something is a recognised term, but I mean it! The band were truly firing on all cylinders now, innovating metal further. 'Exciter' is a track I can finally, officially label 'speed metal', and it's amazing! It's progressive, catchy, heavy, and the musicianship is completely on-point. Great riffs and solos from Glenn and KK, plus amazing vocals from Rob. There's a couple of underrated gems on here too. 'White Heat, Red Hot' is a blues metaller written in a way that uses the best ingredients from albums like Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings. 'Invader' is rarely talked-about - don't know why, because it's great! Don't ask me why, but some of the riffs and guitar melodies in this one almost give me a 70's Ted Nugent vibe! 

The title track has a bit of a 'galloping', thunderous kinda sound that I think Iron Maiden would adopt. 'Saints in Hell' - what a powerful tune! I was chuffed when they played it live at Bloodstock in 2018, wasn't expecting that. The chugging simplicity of 'Savage' is cool as fuck, and every serious Priest fan knows 'Beyond the Realms of Death' is the proggy metal ballad masterpiece. A lot of fans will probably tell you 'Beyond the Realms of Death' is the best track on the album, and I don't blame them one bit. It is brilliant, probably the band's best proggy song ever, and certainly of the 70's decade. 'Exciter' still sits at the top for me though, as fantastic as 'Beyond' is, 'Exciter' just destroys! The album's closer, 'Heroes End' is a bit more straightforward, but the straightforward metal numbers on here are pretty much perfect anyway, and are spread out in a way that makes the album enjoyable to listen to from start to finish.

Oh, and did I mention 'Better By You, Better Than Me'? No? Well it's the album's cover song (Spooky Tooth originally performed it), Stained Class' own 'Diamonds and Rust', and it's excellent and catchy pop metal. But, uh, it also got Priest in a bit of trouble back in 1990. In 1985 an 18 year-old teenager killed himself with a shotgun and his friend, a 20 year-old man attempted to do the same, but survived the ideal with a disfigured face. He died in hospital 3 years later. The pair were listening to this album on the night of the incident, and one of the lad's parents, for some reason, thought 'Better By You' featured a subliminal message to commit the act. The band were put on trial, but were found not guilty - because they weren't trying to encourage anybody to do such a thing. On a lighter note, the band had a brilliant drummer for Stained Class and the LP's follow-up (Killing Machine), Les Binks - just listen to his drum fills and double bass kicks on 'Exciter'! Pioneering stuff! Stuff that is commonplace in metal nowadays! Arguably the best drummer they ever had, though Scott Travis is pretty awesome too. 

As you can see, this is another record that demonstrates the heavy metal genre at it's finest. The 70's produced masterpieces of the genre, such as Black Sabbath's debut album and Master of Reality, Rainbow's Rising, Deep Purple's In Rock and Machine Head,  and of course, Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny and Stained Class. The only niggle I have would be that the production and guitar tones could'a been a little heavier, but I rarely even think this whenever I listen to the album anyway... it's almost another 10 from me.
Adam's rating: 9.9/10

KILLING MACHINE          1978          (Columbia)

- Standouts: 'Deliverin' the Goods', 'Evening Star', 'Running Wild', 'Hell Bent for Leather', 'Killing Machine', 'Take On the World', 'Burnin' Up', 'The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)'

At this point heavy metal was clearly becoming more popular and Judas Priest were leaders of the movement. Every one of their albums up to this point showed a natural evolution and progression; they started off a little bluesy because that's just the way metal was to begin with, but each album got slightly harsher, and you could hear the band developing traits that would be associated with what most people would only consider to be metal. Killing Machine (or if you live in America, the album's called 'Hell Bent for Leather', 'cos the title 'killing machine' apparently implies 'murderous intentions'...cringe) is the turning point. It was even at this point that the band adopted the stereotypical leather look, with Rob Halford even riding a Harley Davidson on stage at this point. 'Course, him being gay had nothing to do with the leather style they suddenly started wearing!

This was the band's heaviest album to date, and when you look at the musical progression of all the LP's that led up to this one, it was always gonna be the heaviest by default really. The only catch is that they traded musical complexity to achieve heavier simplicity. The songs on this album are shorter and more stripped-down in comparison to songs like 'Victim of Changes', 'Sinner', 'Exciter', 'Beyond the Realms of Death' etc.. There's positives and negatives because of all this. Thing is, even though this album does keep things a little more straight-forward this time 'round, it still isn't quite as basic as (spoilers!) what would come next - for a few years anyway - and the songs are still great. Luckily, Killing Machine is full of arse-kicking classics from the headbanging goodness of songs like 'Delivering the Goods' and 'Rock Forever', the speed metal anthem of 'Hell Bent for Leather', the fury of 'Running Wild', the slow, fist-pumpin' chug of 'Killing Machine' and the punchy 'Evil Fantasies', Killing Machine is a molten metal classic. I mean, even the cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)' is heavy as fuck! 'Course, it's a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song when Peter Green was still the leader, so that makes a difference. It's one-dimensional, but it's a sound that Judas Priest created - they're Budweiser, everyone else is Bud Light - still legit, but not quite the full experience (sorry for that awful analogy!)!!!

It's quite clear that around this time, the record label saw more mainstream potential in the band too. As heavy as this album is, 'Evening Star' is radio-friendly pop rock through-and-through. And it's good! But in Priest's defence, 'Diamonds and Rust' from Sin After Sin proved they could pull-off stuff like this anyway. 'Take On the World' is significant too, being a massive sing-along stadium anthem. Not pop rock, but it's the start of something they would continue to do later on. 'Before the Dawn' is a full-on ballad, and it's serviceable, but not one of their best.

As much as I love this album (and I really do, despite some of things I'm about to say in the next few sentences!), the direction they took during this point in their career is arguably responsible for some of the later, questionable moves they would make a bit further down the line. Killing Machine helped shape the imagery of heavy metal forever, and it's clear that the band were trying to make image a big part of their show at this point. They weren't really trying to write deep and complex songs anymore, they wanted to be as metal as they could, but at the same time, they still wanted a few radio hits under their belt. The result is another fabulous album, but one that causes a lot of debate. Some fans preferred the route they took that this album encouraged, others wanted them to expand on the Stained Class sound. Me, I think it's something of a step-down from it's predecessor, but ultimately the identity crisis also brought along many good things to the band as well.
Adam's rating: 9.2/10

UNLEASHED IN THE EAST          1979          (Columbia)

Not only is this live album a reminder that Priest were still the kings of metal in '79, but also a prime example of why I prefer live albums from the 70's. This is truly one of the best live heavy metal recordings you'll ever hear. It PERFECTLY ends the band's 70's era and was released at precisely the right time - just before they got HUGE. The setlist is flawless, with many tracks that are rarely played these days - 'Exciter', 'Tyrant', 'Genocide', 'Starbreaker' and 'Running Wild' are some of Priest's greatest ever songs, and because they have such a large discography they don't see the light of day that often anymore. It's true that the album had been tampered with in the studio to make it sound more polished, but it was for the better. I'm glad this disc was released pre-British Steel, because I love 70's Priest as much as I do any other era.
Adam's rating: 10/10

BRITISH STEEL          1980          (Columbia)

- Standouts: 'Rapid Fire', 'Metal Gods', 'Breaking the Law', 'Grinder', 'United', 'Living After Midnight', 'Steeler'

For a good ten years or so I feel like I was holding deliberately contrarian views about British Steel. To an extent, it does still kind of annoy me that this is Priest's best-known record, but when I think long and hard about it, I still really like this album! I gave it an 8.2/10 when I redid this page in 2020, and I think 8/10 way back in 2017 - not bad scores in the slightest, but given that British Steel more often than not sits right at the top of discography ranking lists from critic sites such as Ultimate Classic Rock and wherever else, surely an album that is supposedly this good would be getting a higher score, even from me?! I think some of the issues I've had with British Steel over the years stems from the fact that despite Judas Priest being one of my favourite bands, they honestly weren't during my school years. I picked this album up when I was around fourteen years old. I bought Sabbath's Paranoid, Deep Purple's In Rock, Maiden's Number of the Beast etc., and all those albums immediately had me hooked and frankly obsessed. British Steel was the first Priest album I bought, and even though I liked it, it didn't make me rush out and buy more Priest records like the others had. It just didn't blow me away. I know it's kind of irrelevant to how I feel about this band now, but I couldn't not bring this up. In fact, it wasn't until my last year in school when I picked up Painkiller that I became a Priest fan - for a couple of years, British Steel was the only Priest album I owned and I assumed they all sounded this way.

My main criticism however, is the fact that the songwriting was at an all-time low in regards to creativity and technicality. You could see it coming with Killing Machine, but the simplicity of the tracks have been taken one step further on British Steel. I mean, the bulk of the riffs on 'Metal Gods' and 'Grinder' for example, are just two or three power chords! What happened to the ambitiousness of prior tracks such as 'Exciter' or 'Victim of Changes'?! There's none of this on British Steel. And 'United' is - let's be honest - just 'Take On the World' part two. Lazy, lazy shit! And those critics have the balls to say that this is the best Priest album!! Obviously album sales spoke differently. This was a massive-seller for Priest, and the fact that the songs had gotten more accessible was testament to that. Any true music fan knows that sales don't mean shit when looking at the overall quality of the music, but still... dat money, dat fame yo!

Like I said at the start of this updated review though, I do love this album. Ironically, part of the reason why British Steel is so great is because of it's simplicity! I just didn't want to admit it. And a handful of these songs have always been among my favourite Priest tunes. The thrashy 'Rapid Fire' is still one of the most kick-butt songs they ever laid down. It never gets old. 'Metal Gods', despite the basic riffs, is another track that I've always loved. It's heavy as hell, and it just has this absolutely massive heavy metal aura to match it's title. Also, 'Steeler' is one of the most metal songs ever. It really helps this record go out with a bang.

So, those are my favourite tracks. I'll admit that I don't ever need to hear 'Breaking the Law' again. A lot of bands seem to have a signature song that doesn't really epitomise the group as a whole, and 'Breaking the Law' is one of them. I mean, it's a good song with an unmistakeable riff, just cheesy and actually really short too. Doesn't sound like the same band that recorded Stained Class or Sad Wings of Destiny, but whatever! It's still a highlight, 'cos you know, how could I leave off their signature song? 'Grinder' is really cool though. It's heavy, and the chorus is a lot of fun ("Grinder... wants you to eat!"). And even if 'United' is blatantly ripping off 'Take On the World', I'd still say it's as good as the song it's trying to imitate. Another decent, singalong stadium anthem. 'Living After Midnight' is an extremely catchy pop metal single with an instantly recognisable drum beat. I will say that 'You Don't Have to Be Old to Be Wise' and 'The Rage' are still noticeably weaker than the rest of the album. The former is a very generic rocker - harmless, but pretty boring. 'The Rage' is actually quite a decent mid-tempo track when it gets going, but I really hate that weird reggae-tinged intro. It just sounds completely out of place to me. One thing that is spot-on with this record, is the production. When sat next to other metal albums of the time, this thing is far more metallic and cutting-edge by comparison. It still sounds great to this day.

There's no way in hell I'm ever gonna stick this in the top five Priest albums of all time, but as I mentioned earlier, I thought long and hard and I do still love British Steel - for the most part that is. I put it next to Screaming for Vengeance (which I originally scored higher), and at the end of the day I still listen to British Steel more. It might not contain Rob's best vocal performance, and it certainly doesn't feature any of Glenn and KK's finest guitar work, but it is a superb, stripped-back heavy metal album in the purest sense. I don't think it's worthy of it's legendary reputation with the critics, but still... how can you not dig it?! 

Adam's rating: 9/10


HERO, HERO          1981          (Koch)
This is a weird compilation that features the entire Rocka Rolla album and six songs from Sad Wings of Destiny. It also has an alternate version of 'Diamonds and Rust', which was originally found on the 1978 compilation The Best of Judas Priest. I only bought this 'cos the artwork is totally killer and should've been used on one of the earlier LP's. Well, that and it certainly looks cool in my collection. Only hardcore fans will have any use for this however.

POINT OF ENTRY          1981          (Columbia)

- Standouts: 'Heading Out to the Highway', 'Desert Plains', 'Solar Angels' 

Q. What do you get when you record an album that basically only consists of the worst musical aspects of British Steel? 
A. Point of Entry.

Seriously, this album is an obvious attempt at radio-friendly heavy metal from start to finish, but at times I'd be hard-pressed to even call it 'heavy metal'. Hard rock is often a better description, really. I wouldn't necessarily argue that the music has been dumbed-down any more than what you heard on British Steel, but it sure as hell hasn't gotten more intricate or complex. And it's certainly not as heavy, hence the hard rock feels. For the most part, the guitar work is passable, but certainly uninspired given Mr. Tipton and Mr. Downing's talents. Rob sounds... fine, I guess, but he's not exactly giving it his all. And there's one song on here that just flat-out sucks: 'You Say Yes' was the dumbest song they'd recorded at the time; it's laughable garbage, driven by a stupid boogie riff. If this were AC/DC, it'd probably be okay. And if KISS wrote 'Don't Go', things would make more sense. But this isn't AC/DC, or KISS for that matter. A lot of this record is essentially just an easy-listening, 'Judas Priest lite'; tracks like 'Turning Circles', 'Troubleshooter', 'On the Run' and 'All the Way' are difficult to even discuss individually, because they have no real standout qualities. They're not awful in the sense that you want to turn them off - they make for decent background music in a way, but they are generic as hell. Well-performed hard rock, yes, but not particularly good Judas Priest songs.

Thankfully the album does have a few redeeming features. I can't help but love 'Heading Out to the Highway'. It's pop metal, sure, but it is Priest-like, at least more-so than the rest of the tracks. And it does sound great live. This one could easily fit into a 'best of' compilation quite comfortably. 'Hot Rockin'' isn't bad either. Again, it's basically harmless radio-friendly metal, but at least the hooks are good and memorable. Not a classic by any stretch of the imagination however. 'Desert Plains' is a pretty decent track that makes for great driving music I will admit, as it has a really big and expansive kind of feel to it, which is appropriate. I think most fans would probably agree that 'Solar Angels' is good too, but it barely qualifies as metal. Nice and chilled hard rock song though. 

It was kind of predictable for Point of Entry to sound the way it does after the success of British Steel. That record was a huge success, so why wouldn't the management be pressing them to go for a more radio-friendly sound? And while there are a few decent tracks, the only actual classic here is 'Heading Out to the Highway' - the other good tunes here are just that - good, but not great. Rest of the album is mediocre, but listenable (aside from 'You Say Yes'). 
Adam's rating: just barely a 6/10.

SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE          1982          (Columbia)

- Standouts: 'Electric Eye', 'Riding On the Wind', 'Bloodstone', '(Take These) Chains', 'Screaming for Vengeance', 'You've Got Another Thing Coming' 

Well, at least they got whatever bug they had out of their systems when they recorded Screaming for Vengeance, because this is a major improvement on Point of Entry's mediocrity. At least they actually tried to be metal again. Even the yellow album cover, with the metallic eagle on it was the most metal artwork they'd come up with at the time. And let's be honest, 'Electric Eye', complete with it's short but integral opening instrumental 'The Hellion', is fucking awesome, fist-pumpin' heavy metal that only a band like Priest could pull off. What a way to start the record. 'Electric Eye' has all the trademark Judas Priest-style riffs and solos, and a great and diverse vocal performance to boot. 'Riding On the Wind' is an excellent slab of melodic speed metal that perfectly showcases Rob's banshee vocals. The title track is more kick-ass speed metal brilliance too.

A lot of this record does follow a similar pattern to British Steel however. It's not all speed metal. However, even though some of these tracks were clearly still trying to appeal to a wider audience (albeit nowhere near to the same extent as anything from Point of Entry), the musicianship is still better than the majority of the performances on British Steel. The only track that could've easily fit on that album is the simplistic, anthem hit 'You've Got Another Thing Coming'. This is a basic rocker for sure, and it is a little overplayed, but it's still the kind of song you won't ever turn off if it came on the radio. And the extremely power metaller 'Bloodstone' clearly has radio potential written all over it, but the guitar work is splendid, and the chorus is really great too. '(Take These) Chains' is a proper ballad, the first in a while, and it's very solid. Not amazing, but still pretty damn good.

While this LP in my opinion was the best they'd made since Killing Machine, I do still find it to be somewhat overrated. Plenty of fans will whack this one up there with the best of the band's material, but I just don't think it quite goes that far. It sure is a great album, but it's not truly superb. Every song is good at the very least, but 'Devil's Child', 'Pain and Pleasure' and 'Fever' have always been kind of forgettable compared to the absolute brilliance of the title track, 'Electric Eye', 'Bloodstone', 'Riding On the Wind' or even the stadium anthem 'You've Got Another Thing Coming' - for me that is. Well, okay, 'Fever' does have some nice guitar melodies about half-way through the song, but either way, the album does have it's failings. Because the band were still immensely popular at this point, it would explain why there's still a fair amount of attempts at more radio-friendly metal hits to be had, but at least those tracks are still much, much better and more metal than those found on Point of Entry, and the actual musicianship is overall better than the bulk of British Steel.
Adam's rating: 8.8/10

DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH          1984          (Columbia)

- Standouts: All of 'em are standouts! 

In no way is this album 'forgotten' among Priest's catalogue, but it does seem to get less praise than Screaming for Vengeance for some reason. Personally I think this an improvement in practically every way over the former - I'm a huge fan of it. Some of the songs on Defenders of the Faith are among their very best, and I say that with my hand on heart. A lot of people like to criticise the production on this one, because it has a really big and chunky, reverby 80's sound - presumably due to the fact it was recorded in a fucking WAREHOUSE (!!!), but I couldn't imagine it any other way. Normally I'd agree that this kind of production job negatively affects a metal album, but here I think it sounds awesome. And in terms of songs, nearly everything is better across the board - honestly, only 'Electric Eye', 'Screaming for Vengeance' and 'Riding On the Wind' can compete with the songs on Defenders.

First of all, 'The Sentinel' is one of the best Judas Priest songs ever written. This track is just EPIC to say the least. The guitar solo trade-off just before that dark intermission about 3 minutes into the song is incredible. And what about Rob's vocals? Best performance since Stained Class. Yeah, he sounds amazing on 'The Sentinel', but then he sounds amazing throughout the entire record this time around, giving it his all on the stupendous speed metal opener of 'Freewheel Burning' (who remembers racing to this scorcher on Gran Turismo 4 on the PS2?!), the furious 'Jawbreaker' and the BEST melodic sing-along stadium anthem they ever wrote - 'Rock Hard Ride Free'. Oh, and the thunderous speed metal riffing on 'Eat Me Alive' is tight as fuck.

Even the radio metal material on here is just better too. I've already stated 'Rock Hard Ride Free' is the best stadium cut they ever penned in my humble opinion, but the brooding 'Love Bites' is amazing too. It manages to be heavy enough to satisfy the metalheads, and catchy enough to be played on the radio. And frankly, the big production really adds to the overall atmosphere of the track. 'Some Heads Are Gonna Roll' is perfect open-road driving music... it's a shame that the last 7 or so minutes of the record does deteriorate, somewhat. 'Night Comes Down' is a good ballad, though I will say that it isn't as memorable as any of the previous tracks, nor is it one of their best ballads in general. And then 'Night Comes Down' and the brief, lazy title track at the end qualify as filler, and it does affect the album's momentum quite significantly. It's a shame because the first 85% of the album is gold.

Defenders of the Faith is easily the best album the band put out in the 80's. It's still not perfect, and even it is isn't as underrated as Rocka Rolla, I can only assume that Screaming for Vengeance usually takes the crown with the critics by comparison because it outsold Defenders. I'll bet a lot of people who praise Vengeance to no end never actually listened to Defenders. Their loss. Buy this one now!
Adam's rating: 9.4/10 

TURBO          1986          (Columbia)

- Standouts: Only 'Turbo Lover'...

Ooh-er, what the fuck happened here? Glam metal was in and Judas Priest decided they'd have a go at it, that's what. Ha! Jesus, their outfits in the sleeve photos are absolutely, positively vulgar. And the hair styles...bleh! Give it three or so more years and Halford would finally resort to shaving his head once and for all. Image isn't everything as we all know, but in the case of glam metal, it really was. Despite the fact that guys were trying to look like chicks, there were still some classic albums to come out of this phase, but Turbo sure as shit wasn't one of them. The thing is, Judas Priest are not a glam metal band, and they knew that. But hey, they tried to be with Turbo, and in place are guitar synthesizers, a drummer that sounds more like a drum machine than an actual human being playing the drums and a bunch of corny anthems for teenagers to rebel to. Take a look at some of the lyrics:

'Parental Guidance':

'"Everyday you scream at me to turn my music low. Well if you keep on screaming, you'll make me deaf you know. You always chew me out, because I stay out late. Until your three-piece suit comes back in date, get one thing straight

We don't need no - no no no - parental guidance here!"

'Rock You All Around the World': 

"Well we don't care in the least, cos our metal is a feast. But there's always someone trying to put it down. So we crank out music louder, and our voices turn to power. With a wall of sound we'll blow 'em all away!

Rock you all around the World - we're gonna rock, we're gonna rock you!"

See what I mean? And with tracks like these along with self-explanatory travesties like 'Hot for Love', 'Wild Nights, Hot and Crazy Days' and 'Private Property', this album is just some kind of sick joke. How could anyone take them seriously at this point?! Well, apparently a lot of people did because this album sold quite well and glam metal was one of the only radio-friendly genres of music at the time that actually had guitars and not just synths. Let's be honest though, with the exception of some parody bands like Steel Panther, it's not surprising that we haven't seen a glam metal revival of any sort since the 80's - yet countless new traditional and thrash metal bands have emerged in the last couple of decades. Some things are just looked back on with fondness, others not so much...

But wait, there's more! Turbo isn't entirely bad. 'Turbo Lover' is, and there's no other way of saying this - it's freaking awesome, man! Even the guitar synths and ultra-slick production can't stop that song from being a classic! As a matter of fact, I don't think it would've worked without the synthy production, as hard as it is to admit it. The same goes for 'Locked In', which admittedly is not a classic, but will still (probably) rock you. Maybe. Jeez, that didn't sound convincing at all, did it? 

So, this is their worst LP then? In my opinion yes - yes it is. It's not completely worthless thanks to 'Turbo Lover' and 'Locked In', but the rest of it just feels like the product of some kind of weird identity crisis that the band were going through at the time. And oddly enough, there's a lot of fans out there who really like this album! I know it has that party vibe, but there's some boundaries this band were never meant to cross. Hard to believe just a couple of years prior, they released Defenders of the Faith, one of their best records. It's as if Rob had just heard Poison on the radio, walked into rehearsal and said: "hey you guys, wouldn't it be funny if we did the same thing?!".
Adam's rating: 3/10

  

PRIEST...LIVE!          1987          (Columbia) 

I was never much of a fan of this live album, yet I own two different CD releases of it - go figure. Actually, I do have a valid reason for this. Many years ago I picked up the old, single-disc pressing which features the original sixteen-track song listing. Later on, I bought the 2001 remaster, which comes on two CD's and features three extra bonus songs. You'd assume I picked up the remaster for the bonus tracks, right? Wrong. Well okay, I sort of did, but the main reason is because all my Priest CD's from Sin After Sin up to Painkiller are also part of the 2001 remaster series, and when you put them all in order on the shelf, they spell 'J U D A S P R I E S T'. But because I had the old copy of Priest...Live!, it meant my particular Priest collection spelt 'J U D A S P R I S T'! The 'E' was missing for years, and I just couldn't take it any more!

So, uh, anyway, I'm not the biggest fan of this live package because it was recorded during the Fuel for Life tour, in support of the Turbo album. Aside from the fact I never liked Turbo, there's nothing on here from any of the 70's records. Well, the 2001 remaster features a performance of 'Hell Bent for Leather' as one of the bonus songs, but that doesn't really count. I will admit that the actual songs from Turbo sound better in the live perspective (not that that's saying much), and the performances themselves on here are good, I always thought this album sounded a little too 'clean' for a live record. Many of the British Steel, Defenders of the Faith tracks etc. to me sound a little less heavy than they do on the actual records. But honestly, I still think the stuff that's on here overall is good. There are no poor or duff performances to speak of in any way shape or form, so it's still worth checking out. Priest were still at the height of their fame around this time (particularly in the US), so it's a good retrospect in that regard. The album cover is a different story. Seriously, what the fuck is up with the cover on this thing?! The text is all lower-case, any and all of the Priest logos and imagery is missing, just a crappy, brownish background with some hands representing fans! How lame!  
Adam's rating: 7/10

RAM IT DOWN          1988          (Columbia)

- Standouts: 'Ram It Down', 'Blood Red Skies', 'Hard as Iron' 

Let's be honest, Turbo was a huge embarrassment. I know some fans like it, or claim to like it, but I would guess the average 'fan' of Turbo (if such people exist) enjoys it for novelty value over anything else. The band followed that train-wreck of an album up with Ram It Down, and when you listen to this thing for the first time, no-doubt you'll agree that things start of promisingly. The opening title track is a fine slab of speed metal with Halford truly screaming like a banshee, and it's on par with basically any of the best songs from Screaming, maybe even the mighty Defenders. Obviously you aren't going to hear anything that really resembles their 70's works, that goes without saying, but they proved they could still create classic metal during the 80's on Defenders. Uh, this isn't exactly the case on Ram It Down. It's mostly downhill after the title track, sadly.

On the plus side, this LP comes nowhere near the pitiful depths of Turbo, and there's still a few more gems to be found beyond track one. Any Priest fan will likely agree with me when I say the lengthier 'Blood Red Skies' is a classic. It's a ballad, and while the synths (which are used only subtly here, unlike anything from Turbo) will probably raise some eyebrows on first listen, the song is pretty powerful on the whole, with inspiring guitar solos and yet another classic Halford vocal performance. I also think 'Hard as Iron' is a genuine contender for the top five most underrated Priest songs. You know what this tune sounds like to me? Power metal! Power metal before it was really a recognisable sub-genre. I'll admit, I'm not really a fan of power metal as a whole as I find most of the bands these days to be way too cheesy, but I've always kind of enjoyed early, old-school power metal like Gamma Ray and Rage (no, I don't mean Rage Against the Machine, the band RAGE from Germany! Not that I dislike RAtM...) etc., and 'Hard as Iron' is about as good as that early, melodic, power/speed metal gets.

The rest of this album ranges from pretty good, to mediocre, to bloody awful. There's one complete travesty on here - the cover of Chuck Berry's classic 'Johnny B. Goode' is a huge mistake, and in hindsight, doesn't make any sense. Apparently a film company wanted them to record a new version of the song for a crappy 1988 movie called 'Johnny Be Good'. I just looked on the IMDb page for it, and it's got a Metacritic score of 10/100 and user score of 4.6/10, so yeah... probably not worth a watch. But why the film company approached Judas Priest for this cover is beyond me. Whatever. Anyhow, the 'pretty good' consists of 'Heavy Metal', 'Love Zone', 'Love You to Death' and 'Come and Get It' while the 'medicore' has to be 'I'm a Rocker' and 'Monsters of Rock'. 'Heavy Metal' should be decent - it's Priest doing a song called 'Heavy Metal' for fucks sake! In reality it's a cheesy anthem with dumb lyrical content, but at least it is still kind of 'heavy', and definitely 'metal'. Rob sounds great, and the shredding guitar solo at the beginning is cool too. The other listenable tracks mentioned are a bit on the generic side a times, but they're definitely not horrible. 'Love Zone' is cool. 'Monsters of Rock' however, is a cheesy anthem that sounds like the theme to some 80's fantasy cartoon, and it would actually be more tolerable if it weren't for the silly lyrics once again. It's not aged all that well either - for example, the drum work still sounds like a drum machine. Which makes sense, because the drums were pulled off by a machine here, according to KK Downing at least! 

What I don't understand about this album is the repeated statement from Rob and co. that Ram It Down was the "hardest" and "heaviest thing they'd recorded at the time". The title track is heavy for sure, and the guitar tones sound good, true, but aside from that, this I'd say Ram It Down is an inconsistent jumble of songs. Part of it is trying to forget Turbo even happened ('Ram It Down', 'Hard as Iron'), but at the same time it's still trying to top the charts ('Monsters of Rock', 'I'm a Rocker' etc.). Thankfully the good outweighs the bad (even with 'Johnny B. Goode' on the album!). In fact, the good tracks on here are legit gems, but overall the record's far from a classic, and it doesn't exactly qualify as a return to form, even after the moronic Turbo. Maybe giving this thing a 6.5/10 is too generous, but there's only one track on here that is genuinely awful.
Adam's rating: 6.5/10

THE COLLECTION          1989          (Castle)

Don't know much about this disc. Is it official? At first I thought it was just the Hero, Hero compilation with a different title seeing as the artwork is identical bar the band logo font (and title of course), but then I noticed the track listing is slightly different. Hero, Hero only contains six tracks from Sad Wings Of Destiny, and the songs from Rocka Rolla were remixed. The Collection on the other hand contains all songs from both those records, excluding the song 'Caviar And Meths' for whatever reason, and none of the tracks have been remixed. To be honest, I didn't pick this one up for the songs, as I already had them all years and years ago. I picked it up because it was cheap, makes for a nice collectors disc, and again, that artwork is killer! Way better than the Rocka Rolla artwork for sure.

PAINKILLER          1990          (Columbia)

- Standouts: Every second of it!

I'm gonna assume you've seen the score already. If you've already listened to Painkiller then you probably already know that it's generally regarded as a classic in it's genre, and certainly one of Priest's finest. Even so, that score probably does seem a bit steep for an album that doesn't really do anything innovative or original. It's full of cliches unique to the metal genre to the point where it's just too metal for it's own good! But that's okay, because it's Judas Priest writing and performing these songs, the inventors of these metal cliches! If this record was released by anyone else then I'd probably still be praising it, but I'd certainly be labelling it a wannabe Priest LP!

I'll also admit that I am also a tad biased towards this record. Hopefully you didn't skip over my British Steel review. That album was the first Priest record I ever heard as a dopey 13 year old, and even though I liked it, I didn't touch another Priest album until I my last year of school when I was 15 - and that album was Painkiller of course. British Steel didn't have such a big impact on me, and I assumed all of the band's stuff sounded the same, or at least similar to it. Obviously I was wrong. When I first listened to Painkiller, it blew me away. Rob Halford sings like his life depended on it for more-or-less the entire duration of the record, while Glenn Tipton and KK Downing's guitar work here is a trillion times better across the board. Just listen to motherfucking 'Metal Meltdown' to see what I mean! Or how about Glenn's solo in the title track? Speaking of which, 'Painkiller' is the opening track, and I'll admit that it's probably the single greatest speed metal number ever written. From the vocals to the music itself, it's pure speed metal nirvana. And the same can be said for songs like 'All Guns Blazing', 'Leather Rebel' and 'Metal Meltdown' - Priest always touched on speed metal, and while songs like 'Sinner', 'Exciter', 'Electric Eye', 'Rapid Fire', 'Eat Me Alive' and 'Freewheel Burning' are all pretty much perfect tunes in their own right, the speed metal songs here sound like a natural progression of all their previous, fast songs. They've gotten tighter and more technical, and Rob's perfected his vocal style for this kind of style.

The album's not made up entirely of speed metal cuts though. The mid-tempo stuff is pulled off brilliantly too, and the whole thing is paced perfectly overall thanks to this. 'Hell Patrol' is a thunderous slab of molten metal while 'Between the Hammer and the Anvil' and 'Night Crawler' have something of a power metal vibe, especially in terms of the guitars. There's even an amazing ballad here too, with 'A Touch of Evil'. 'One Shot at Glory' ends the album on an epic sort of note. No iffy tracks to be found, then. Hell no! Rob gives the vocal performance of his entire career, and it's worth mentioning that the drum work is the best since any of the Les Binks-era material, thanks to the addition of new American drummer, Scott Travis (formerly of Racer X), who's still in the band to this day.

I won't say outright that Painkiller is the best Priest album. It's a three-way tie between this, Stained Class and Sad Wings of Destiny. Both of the other LP's were made when metal was still in it's earlier stages, and the band hadn't actually developed a 'signature' sound as such, but were certainly innovating the genre. Painkiller is pretty much as good as it gets in terms of pure, unadulterated HEAVY METAL - it's the kind of sound and imagery that instantly comes to mind when someone says "heavy metal". Everyone else is imitating. Sure, Sabbath are kings of metal too - but they're the kings of the slow, doom-laden side of metal. Priest are the kings of cheesy, over-the-top, leather n' spikes metal!
Adam's rating: 9.8/10

FIGHT - WAR OF WORDS          1993          (Epic)

- Standouts: 'Into the Pit', 'Nailed to the Gun', 'War of Words', 'For All Eternity', 'Kill It'

Despite the fact Judas Priest dropped one of the best metal albums of all time in 1990 - Painkiller - vocalist Rob Halford had left the band in '92. From what I can tell by reading his autobiography (Confess), there were non-stop arguments going on between guitarists' Glenn Tipton and KK Downing which was exhausting for Rob - who at this point, had been through rehab and was living in sobriety. He'd even expressed interest in going solo pre-Painkiller and already given the go-ahead from the rest of the band and thus, formed the band Fight. From what I gather though, he never actually intended to leave Priest, it just turned out that way in the end.

So, it's the early 90's then, and the sounds of groove metal bands like Pantera, Fear Factory and Machine Head were taking over the scene. Priest had taken Pantera on tour to support them for the Painkiller tour and Rob had been impressed by them. War of Words is a bit like Judas Priest and a less technical Cowboys from Hell-era Pantera thrown into a blender. And to be fair, it's not bad. The whole thing's serviceable from start to finish, but it is a little too simplistic at times. The songwriting and musicianship isn't as impressive as either Priest or Pantera (despite the fact Priest drummer Scott Travis is present here), but thankfully Rob's instantly-recognisable banshee vocals bring this album up a few notches. And his lyrics are great too, often political and a far cry from Judas Priest in that regard.

The album starts off with a total 'banger - 'Into the Pit'. With a title like that, it's obviously a high-speed thrash assault with great riffage, and it's cool to hear Halford singing on a track as barbaric as this. It's intense. 'Nailed to the Gun' follows, and is another heavy number that's driven by some very simple, but immediate riffs to get you headbanging. Like I said before though, I do think some of these tracks are a little too simple at times. This is a heavy and enjoyable track all in all, but if it didn't have one of metal's greatest vocalists of all time on it, I don't think it'd garner much attention. The next couple of tracks, 'Life in Black' and 'Immortal Sin', plus 'Laid to Rest' and 'Contortion' all have the same issue - I mean, they're decent enough mid-tempo chuggers, but it's really only Rob's vocals and lyrics that actually make them interesting. Speaking of interesting, Russ Parrish makes up one half of the guitar duo (the other a guy called Brian Tilse), and he went on to form the comedic parody glam metal band Steel Panther years later! Also, Rob himself is credited for guitars on this album, but apparently he only wrote some of the riffs during the songwriting process and didn't actually record any. Maybe that explains some of the simplicity then?

The title track is pretty awesome. 'War of Words' is groove metal to the max; it's catchy, heavy, tight... probably my favourite song here. This is one that makes my workout playlists. The ballad 'For All Eternity' is great too, with nice guitar melodies and a great solo to boot. I do like 'Kill It' as well. Just a very direct and to-the-point headbanger. 'Little Crazy' has a good vocal hook too. And despite my complaints about the overall basicness of the song structures, the only song on here that I'd say I genuinely don't like is 'Vicious', as I just find the chorus to be quite annoying. That and the fact it isn't as nasty-sounding as the title suggests. Of course, this album was heavier than anything Priest had done at the time, but ironically, Priest made an even heavier album than War of Words in 1997 with Jugulator, when Tim 'Ripper' Owens was fronting them.

I really think any Priest fan owes it to themselves to track this album down. It's Rob doing metal of course, but it's Rob moving away from the trademark leather n' studs and crazy OTT imagery of Judas Priest into a harder, more groove-focused detuned 90's metal sound and, uh, shorts and flannel grunge-esque fashion statement! Yeah, it is kind of weird to see Halford with his modest attire in his Fight days. War of Words is a solid 90's metal platter - musically, you can do far better, but you can also do far worse. What it has that other metal albums of the same period don't, is the metal god himself on vocals.

Adam's rating: 7.5/10

GLENN TIPTON - BAPTIZM OF FIRE          1997          (Warner Music)

- Standouts: 'Enter the Storm', 'Fuel Me Up', 'Baptizm of Fire'

Since I just went through and reviewed any of the Rob Halford solo albums in my collection, I figured Glenn Tipton's first solo effort, '97's Baptizm of Fire was worth a revisit too. Glenn is of course, one half of the twin-guitar attack of Judas Priest (the other being KK Downing, or Richie Faulkner in more recent times). I'm a huge Priest fan, and have been since my mid-teens, and if my memory serves me well, I think I got hold of this album during my time in Sixth Form college. I think I also got Rob Halford's first side-project, Fight's War of Words around the same time. Unlike Rob, who's enjoyed a decent amount of success with all his stuff outside of Priest, Glenn's only ever made two solo albums, this and 2006's Edge of the World (but from what I can gather, that album was just a bunch of leftover recordings from Baptizm). I suppose you could say that Baptizm of Fire is relatively obscure by comparison to Halford's projects.

To be honest, most of the tracks on here are not really all that comparable to Judas Priest. Glenn handles all the vocal duties too, and you can tell that he's not really a singer. Given that the tracks here are his own creations (aside from the Rolling Stones cover, 'Paint It Black'). He (mostly) manages to mould his limited vocal abilities to suit the music, but really I do think this album would be better with a real singer. He really takes some getting used to. Sorry Glenn! You're an awesome guitarist, but singing's not really your forte! Despite my issues with Tipton's lacking vocals, I do think the rest of the music on here is pretty good overall. It's kind of a stripped-back, 90's-sounding heavy metal album with a few grungy influences here and there. No, it's not as exciting or theatrical as Priest, but it sounds as if Glenn was trying to differentiate himself from his main band anyway. 'Fuel Me Up' is a cool, heavy and driving speed metal song. I like the moody, grunge-tinged 'Enter the Storm' too, and honestly, despite the fact 'Paint It Black' has been covered by a million different artists, but Glenn somehow manages to make his rendition interesting enough by metallizing it. It's actually quite fun. 'Extinct' is another kinda grungy, Alice in Chains-style metal affair with a great chorus and hooks, although the quasi-rapping in the middle of the song was a mistake. Good track on the whole, though. The title song itself is solid too, a very hard-hitting, speedy instrumental with some great soling throughout. It also features keyboards to create something of an atmospheric background. It's a bit like a slightly harder-edged Joe Satriani number. I also quite like the pummelling 'Cruise Control'. Some tracks fall into filler territory however. 'Hard Core' is not a bad song, but it's a poor choice for an album opener. It's mid-tempo, and built around some simple riffage. Also, the acoustic, ballady song at the end, 'Left for Dead' is honestly pretty crappy. Glenn just doesn't do the vocal department justice on it, and it makes the song sound quite silly really. I don't care much for 'The Healer' either.

I guess I'll go ahead and call this a respectable effort, but Baptizm of Fire isn't all that great either. There's nothing outright awful on here, but it's really only worth checking out for die hard Priest fans like myself. Glenn is a fantastic guitarist and integral to Priest legacy, but unlike Rob Halford, I don't think he has the charisma to succeed as a solo artist by comparison. This album would've scored higher with a better vocalist, sure, but that still ain't enough to make it a classic.

Adam's rating: 6.1/10

JUGULATOR          1997          (SPV)

- Standouts: 'Blood Stained', 'Death Row', 'Burn in Hell', 'Bullet Train', 'Cathedral Spires' 

Uh, looks like I forgot to mention that Painkiller was Rob Halford's last album with Judas Priest, at least until 2005's Angel of Retribution that is. He did rejoin the band for good in 2003, but during the 90's he wanted to record his own stuff (Fight, 2wo and the band Halford - these are bands to discuss in another post sometime). In the time that Rob was away, the rest of the band eventually found a replacement in 1996 - a much younger American vocalist called Tim 'Ripper' Owens - who got the nickname from the Priest song 'The Ripper', naturally. Tim had been in Winters Bane prior, and had also been singing in a Judas Priest tribute band, so I guess you could say he was qualified for the job. However, the mere thought of anyone other than Halford fronting the Priest was blasphemy to some fans. The man's a legend, and his pipes are iconic. Blaze Bayley was fronting Iron Maiden during this time, having replaced Bruce Dickinson - and he never quite fit in for some fans. Priest were in the same boat - a lot of people like to ignore both Jugulator and Demolition, the Priest albums with Tim on vocals.

I must admit I was quite wary when I first heard that Priest had made an album without Rob, let alone two! But at the same time, it did at least make me extremely curious to hear Jugulator (and Demolition) for myself, even if I was basically expecting a recipe for disaster. Well, the good news is that Jugulator - despite the stupid Insane Clown Posse-like album title, and the crappy pixelated artwork on the cover (which is only pixelated because it's zoomed in - if they'd just shown the whole thing it wouldn't be) - is actually quite good! In fact, when I first picked this up aged 16, I really liked it, the reason being that it's way heavier than anything else they ever recorded. And at that age, heavy is good! Listening to this thing again aged 28 however, it's fair to say that there are a whole bunch of issues to be found here, stuff I would've dismissed or looked over as a teen.

The album's heavy, sure, but let's be honest, it does make the album a whole lot less Priest-like, if ya get me. It's not like Priest aren't heavy - they're a HEAVY metal band for fucks sake! But this is a lot heavier. The guitars are detuned, and most of the riffs are starting to drift into groove/thrash metal territory. And aside from a few songs here and there, most of the lyrics are moronic (not on every song though). I mean, the lyrics on the title track, 'Decapitate', 'Abductors', 'Dead Meat' and 'Death Row' are very dumb. I'm not sure if Tim wrote the lyrics; I've heard Glenn may have done, either way, Rob's not present and the words sound very amateur by comparison. 'Course, 16 year-old me loved the lyrics! They're darker, edgier and more violent! But Priest-like they sure ain't. And the guitar solos kind of sound as if Glenn and KK had some sort of Kerry King/Jeff Hanneman fascination around this time, because a lot of the solos on this record have more of a Slayer, lack-of-melody sort of structure to them, which is a shame.

Thankfully the music is still pretty kick-ass on the whole. The riffs are enjoyable and memorable from start to finish. I don't dislike any of the songs in terms of the riffs from start to finish - the faster stuff on here, 'Jugulator', 'Blood Stained', 'Death Row' and 'Bullet Train' are full of pummelling riffs, while the mid-tempo numbers like 'Abductors', 'Decapitate', 'Dead Meat' and 'Burn in Hell' are really quite crushing. In fact, I've seen some fans argue that if Rob had sung on numbers like 'Bullet Train' and 'Abductors', they'd be considered instant classics. And that brings me onto Tim Owens' vocals - he's a great singer! Okay, so he isn't Rob, and he never will be - but honestly, listen to his screams on songs like 'Jugulator' and 'Abductors', and tell me he doesn't sound like Rob! True, he is clearly trying to imitate Halford when he does scream, but the man sang in a Priest tribute act for crying out loud! And when he isn't screaming, he does at least sound unique in that sense. Honestly, I think Tim did a good job during the years he filled-in for Rob. Let's not forget the epic-length 'Cathedral Spires', which is almost universally accepted as a legit classic. And that's good, because it is a classic. It's a powerhouse of a metal song on all fronts; even the lyrics are decent this time!

So, Jugulator. It sounds odd, and it is odd for the fact it doesn't have Halford on it. The more you listen to it however, it does sort of make sense in retrospect. The band themselves claim the album to be a natural progression from Painkiller, and when you think where metal was in the mid-to-late 90's, I suppose they are right. Plus, Painkiller came out in 1990, Jugulator in 1997 - a fair amount of time had passed. I say check it out - I like it, always have done, even if I don't like it as much as I did when I was younger. I can't guarantee that you will like it, but I really don't consider it to be one of the band's worst efforts. Compared to Point of Entry or Ram It Down, it is far stronger. So yeah, give it a chance!
Adam's rating: 7.9/10

'BULLET TRAIN' / 'BLOOD STAINED' (CD promo)         1997         (CMC)

A two-track promotional CD, essentially a taster for the Jugulator album. Like I said in the Jugulator review, I've always liked the album. True, it has it's issues - as I've gotten older, I've realised that a lot of the lyrical matter is pretty dumb, and those tuneless, wannabe-Slayer guitar solos will always be disappointing, but Tim Owens' vocals are decent, and in general the riffs are pretty damn excellent throughout. 'Bullet Train' and 'Blood Stained' are prime Priest cuts. From what I can tell, Jugulator was released through SPV in Europe, and CMC International in America - this promo CD must have been distributed in American then, because mine has CMC on it. I won this disc in an eBay auction for less than £4, and it makes for a nice collectors item, but not much more.

'98 LIVE MELTDOWN          1998          (SPV)

Regardless of the mixed reception of Jugulator and Demolition, I always thought Tim Owens handled the classics in the live setting quite well. Actually, he handles the oldies very well at times. Sure, he doesn't imitate Rob Halford with pin-point accuracy, but on this two-CD live album he still manages to make Judas Priest sound like Judas Priest. And at times, he does some cool and interesting things that Rob didn't do - for instance, on the mid-section of the blazing 'Rapid Fire', Tim screams the whole thing, and it sounds awesome. Much more intense. Speaking of intense, all the songs are played in a lower tuning, making them much heavier than their original counterparts. I guess this was done to match the heavier sounds of the few Jugulator tracks that appear in this album. I think it works though. Standout performances for me are 'Rapid Fire', 'Victim of Changes', 'The Sentinel', and the acoustic rendition of 'Diamonds and Rust' is nice too. Honestly, I have no hesitations recommending '98 Live Meltdown. Halford or no Halford, it's a great live package.

Adam's rating: 8.5/10

2WO - VOYEURS          1998          (Nothing Records)

- Standouts: 'I Am a Pig', 'My Ceilings Low', 'Gimp'

Okay, things take a slightly stranger turn for the worse now. Fight was extremely 90's in almost every sense of word in terms of metal, but that's exactly what that project was - it was still metal. By the late 90's, Rob was embracing the industrial scene that was at it's all-time high with groups like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, KMFDM and Rob Zombie leading the movement. Seeing as he was still out of Judas Priest, Rob thought he'd have a go at industrial too. In his autobiography, he explains that he and Marilyn Manson's guitarist (well, he wasn't Manson's guitarist just yet), John 5, walked into Trent Reznor's (Nine Inch Nails) Nothing Records in New Orleans, and he immediately expressed interest in what was to become 2wo and signed them to the label. Naturally, the project received a lot of flak back in the day. A lot of fans were not impressed with Rob's new goth look and sound. Industrial = electronic, beat-driven heavy rock/metal of course, a far cry from the molten heavy metal of Judas Priest, and even a big departure from the groove metal of Fight. Even I wasn't digging this when I first picked it up in my Sixth Form days. Hearing it again today however, it's really not that bad! In fact, I quite liked it in places! Sure, this isn't exactly Halford in his element, but he adjusts his voice well enough to suit the gothic, industrial style of Voyeurs while still sounding unmistakeably like himself.

Despite trying to fit into the industrial scene as best as it could, there's enough guitars on here to at least qualify as 'industrial metal'. Put it this way, it's definitely heavier than anything Trent Reznor's done with Nine Inch Nails, and is not really directly comparable. 'If' and 'Deep in the Ground' are kinda lame and have aged badly, sure, but a few of the songs like 'I Am a Pig', 'Stutter Kiss', 'My Ceiling's Low' and 'Leave Me Alone' sound as good to me as anything Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie were doing at the same time. The actual industrial side of the music is not as obnoxious as you might think on many of the tracks here, and you'll find good vocal hooks and some good riffs scattered throughout the album. 'Gimp' and 'Wake Up' are good songs too. I'll admit I'm not exactly the biggest fan or expert on this genre (although I am a NIN fan), but credit where credit is due, this was clearly a passion project and Rob managed to not completely embarrass himself either. 

I guess I can't be too kind though. While there's nothing on this record that's downright awful, there are no outstanding tracks to speak of here either. And let's be honest, it's not exactly an album I turn to very often when I want to hear some Halford. What it is, is a fair attempt at an industrial project, and one that Rob sounds surprisingly comfortable doing. It's the kind of album that's worth hearing at least once just for the unusual circumstances it provides. Yeah, it ain't the best thing Halford was ever attached to (2wo only lasted this one album), but not the catastrophe you'd expect it to be either. It was a significant time in Rob's life too - he publicly came out of the closet during an MTV interview in 1998. I doubt this was any surprise to the average fan, and obviously most fans didn't gave a damn either way, but you can read how important this was for Rob himself in his book titled Confess.
Adam's rating: 6/10

HALFORD - RESURRECTION          2000          (Sanctuary)

- Standouts: 'Resurrection', 'Made in Hell', 'The One You Love to Hate', 'Cyberworld', 'Drive'

The metal world needed this record in 2000. Rob had done the Fight thing, which was cool, but it was definitely a different kind of metal for him. And 2wo was a huge stylistic change which naturally meant the project was also a flop. Judas Priest were performing with Tim Owens... we just needed Halford back in Priest, or at the very least, singing in some other kind of no-frills, no-nonsense heavy metal band. And that's pretty much exactly what this band deliver.

The appropriately-titled Resurrection is a fine slab of heavy metal alright. The album begins with the Priest-lite speed metal scorchers, 'Resurrection' and 'Made in Hell', and already you can hear Rob is back on form. They're great, especially 'Resurrection' with those Painkiller-style shrieks. 'Locked and Loaded' is a chugging mid-tempo number, 'Night Fall' is another slower fist-pumper with a big arena-metal kind of chorus. There's a solid modern metal ballad in the lengthier 'Silent Screams' while 'The One You Love to Hate' is another powerful track that features a duet with none other than Bruce Dickinson! Yeah, the guy from Iron Maiden, not the other one (Bruce "more cowbell" Dickinson)! There's also another decent Priest-esque speed metal song in 'Cyberworld'. The thunderous groove metal of 'Drive', maybe the heaviest track on here, is enjoyable too. The album ends on another dose of speed metal, with 'Saviour'. To accompany the music is the meaty production from Roy Z, and I honestly can't think of anything to complain about in regards to it.  

Resurrection was more-or-less a return to form for Rob back in 2000. It's the best album in his solo discography, including Fight. That said, there's still a couple of filler tracks here and there, such as 'Twist' and 'Slow Down'. There's nothing on this album that's downright insulting or anything, but not every track is great. And again, as good as this album is, Judas Priest are still better. That said, Resurrection is a well-crafted slice of old-school metal that made Rob relevant again. And in his defence, I don't think he was in a position where he could just reunite with Priest as he pleased, at the time. So really, this was the next best thing.

Adam's rating: 8/10

DEMOLITION          2001          (SPV)

- Standouts: 'Feed on Me', 'Hell is Home', 'Bloodsuckers'

Jugulator was not the monumental failure I was expecting. Sure, most of the solos sucked and wanted to sound like Slayer, but the riffs crushed, and Tim Owens' vocal performance was decent considering the icon he was taking over from. More importantly, although the album was by far the heaviest thing they'd ever made, Tim's voice still retained that essential ingredient that it still sounded like a Judas Priest album at the end of the day. So, uh, what exactly happened with it's follow-up?

In all fairness, I don't consider Demolition to be the total catastrophe that some fans do. It's not even their worst album - I'm sorry, but Turbo is infinitely worse than this effort. Some of the songs aren't really that much of a departure from Jugulator; overall, Demolition's not quite as heavy, sure, but then Jugulator was really heavy. It does however, take advantage of some questionable sounds that were pretty commonplace in mainstream metal at the time. Umm... stuff like sampling, industrial beats and - *gulp* - even rapping! Judas Priest does nu metal? I wouldn't go that far, thankfully. Okay, Tim's wannabe rapping during the verses of 'Metal Messiah' are hugely embarrassing, and the rest of the track is basically horrible nu metal garbage, but this is the only song on the album that really comes close to nu metal. The rest of the songs are kind of like a mash-up of Jugulator, speed metal, groove metal, industrial metal and the occasional 80's Priest-esque melodies and riffs. I get that probably still sounds like a recipe for disaster, but there's some good ideas, licks, riffs, vocals etc. scattered around the record. 

Here's a little rant: I'd like to add that I can totally see Halford singing on this album, if he were still in the band during 2001. Why do people automatically assume that if Rob never left the band at any point in Priest's career, that all their albums would sound closer to something like Painkiller or Screaming or Vengeance, but not Jugulator or Demolition? The man left after Painkiller to work exclusively on writing his own songs. He made a couple of what were basically Pantera-style groove metal albums with Fight, and an entirely-industrial rock album with 2wo - all during the 90's! Even one of his 2002 solo albums, Crucible, had a definite groove metal-influence!

Getting back on track though, 'Machine Man' is a solid, heavy speed metal opener with some extremely tight riffage. The line "So you motherFUCKERS want to race?! You've all got loser tattooed on your face!" is cringe-worthy, and sounds something like, I dunno, Disturbed or Slipknot would've written around then, but the music's not bad at all. 'One on One' is okay too, some good, heavy riff-driven metal. Harmless. 'Hell is Home' isn't especially Priest-like in the conventional sense, but props to Tim on this one; the vocal melodies and lines are great, and the track is a standout for sure. Apparently even KK Downing's eventual replacement, Ritchie Faulkner, considers 'Hell is Home' to be one of the band's best songs, so that's saying something. I think 'Jekyll and Hyde' is a cool, short and snappy slice of metal. 'Close to You' - meh, it's an average ballad. Lyrics are pretty crappy, but musically it's acceptable. I will admit 'Devil Digger's chorus is boring as hell - the riffs are alright, but Tim takes an almost Marilyn Manson-like approach to the verses, which is stupid. 'Bloodsuckers' is an underrated track. Take away the silly, sampling intro, and the rest of the song is kick-ass Judas Priest, Jugulator-style (very nearly Painkiller-ish) metal. And Tim actually takes advantage of his ability to do Halford-style screaming for the first time on the whole record! A gem! Another ballad follows, 'In Between' - this one is on par with 'Close to You', but is still very un-Priest like overall, with it's very 90's groove metal-style guitar effects. 

I do like the stomping 'Feed On Me', and if it wasn't for some of the stupid sampling in the background, it too may have fit on Jugulator quite comfortably. 'Subterfuge', which follows, is pretty mediocre however. The opening/chorus riffs are nice and classic Priest-sounding, but the rest of the song is quite lame musically. It doesn't help that because the songs were written in a way that occasionally tries to sound contemporary, Tim Owens can't really do his Halford impersonations making his overall vocal performance quite generic in comparison to Jugulator. In no way does he sound bad, but he certainly shines more on specific tracks like 'Hell is Home' and 'Bloodsuckers' more-so than a track like 'Subterfuge' or 'Devil Digger'. 'Lost and Found' is another ballad - let's be honest, three is quite unnecessary on a Judas Priest album - but at least this one is largely a back-to-basics acoustic number by comparison. Then there's 'Cyberface', which has some Pantera-like, chugging riffage, and it's listenable, but certainly forgettable - although Tim sounds good for sure. Obviously the album ends on 'Metal Messiah', which as I said earlier, sucks hard.

Although I don't dislike Demolition, I can't deny that it's a product of it's time. I can understand why a lot of other fans don't like it - it has it's share of iffy content, some of it is even borderline terrible - but it also has some tracks that I do genuinely like. 'Machine Man', 'Hell is Home', 'Jekyll and Hyde', 'Bloodsuckers', 'Feed on Me'; they're all pretty good tunes in my opinion, and every once in a while I don't mind hearing 'One on One' either. However, it is quite clear that they were trying to stay relevant with this CD, and that's not a good thing because this is a band that have been around since the early 70's. It isn't the fully-blown nu metal mess that some people claim it to be, but it's definitely one of the weirdest things they ever made musically. But as I explained before, I still think if Halford never left the band at any point, the guys still probably would've put something out that sounds similar to this around the early 2000's. Naturally, Rob did reunite with the band a couple of years later, and Demolition was subsequently the final studio record Tim Owens recorded with the Priest. I kind of feel bad giving this album a tad less than Ram It Down (which I gave 0.1/10 more!) - in general Demolition is a good metal album, but it's really not a great Judas Priest album.

Strangely enough, I actually own two copies of this thing. I have my standard CD release with no extras which I've had since I was about 16, but a couple of years ago I stumbled across the Australian version of the album, which comes in a nice black digipak and some bonus tracks. These tracks are re-recordings of 'Rapid Fire' from British Steel, and the 'The Green Manilishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)', which was originally a Fleetwood Mac number they covered on Killing Machine. These are okay, with Tim ironically sounding better on 'Rapid Fire' than he does the rest of the actual album, but given that the songs have been performed in much lower guitar tunings than their original counterparts, expect them to be a lot heavier and more modern-sounding.

Adam's rating: 6.4/10

HALFORD - CRUCIBLE          2002          (Sanctuary)

- Standouts: 'Crucible', 'Betrayal', 'Handing Out Bullets', 'Wrath of God'

Obviously the fact the band Halford and their successful first album, Resurrection, focussed solely on heavy metal and only heavy metal meant good things for Rob, and a couple of years later he released this follow-up record, Crucible. Despite very much being metal, the band Halford does not sound like a carbon-copy Judas Priest. True, the music on these albums sounds closer to Priest than Fight or 2wo - and the band even included a few Priest classics in their live set - but Priest is Priest. No-one else sounds like them, even when actual members of the band are performing within different projects.

Crucible is primarily a heavy metal album that has a modern quality to it, in terms of the riffs and the arrangements as well as Roy Z's production. The guitars are tuned lower than classic Judas Priest, and I hear some groove, some thrash and speed at times, but not in the same 90's, Pantera-esque vibes that Fight had. The opening title track is a monster for sure, and on the speed metal 'Betrayal' has Rob doing the banshee, Painkiller-style vocals. This is probably my favourite song on this album, actually. The guitar harmonies in the middle of the song are very old-school, almost power metal-like. I like 'One Will' too. This song is heavy in it's verses, but has an anthemic kind of chorus. 'Handing Out Bullets' is pretty cool too, quite similar to 'Betrayal' in that it's another speed metal number with those sneering, high-pitch Halford vocals. 'Crystal' is melodic and has a sort of ballad quality about it. 'Wrath of God', another speed metal number, is very good too.

Complaints? I mean, I do think this CD is unnecessarily long. It's over fifty-five minutes in length, and probably could've been cut short by a couple of tracks. Given that this is just a one-dimensional, straightforward metal album with no surprises at the end of the day, I think the forty-five minute mark is more realistic. For that reason, there's a few filler tracks to be found, although I don't think any of the songs come anywhere near being 'bad' as such - just generic at times. The chugging 'Hearts of Darkness' is not exactly memorable and the mid-tempo grooves of 'Heretic' and 'Weaving Sorrow' are kinda forgettable too, but again, they're certainly not bad songs. And while the crunchy production is not bad by any means, it does sound a little too bassy and modern sometimes, but then maybe that was the point. It does at least further differentiate the band Halford from Judas Priest.

This is a good album with a few great tracks (particularly the faster songs) as well as some filler. To be honest, it's probably a more accomplished album and band than a project like Fight ever was, but I still enjoy that War of Words album more. It's significantly weaker than it's predecessor, Resurrection, as well. Crucible is more-or-less solid from start to finish, but it sadly has nothing that really makes it stand out among Rob's entire discography. I don't really listen to it very often, but at the same time, there's nothing inherently wrong with it either. It's simply just the man playing it safe. If you enjoy almost anything else he's done, you'll enjoy Crucible. 

Adam's rating: 7.1/10

LIVE IN LONDON          2003          (SPV)

Another double, two-CD live offering from the Ripper Owens-fronted Priest. Thankfully, the setlist has a few differences to the one found on '98 Live Meltdown - as well as all the usual fan favourites, 'Running Wild', 'Heading Out To The Highway' and 'Turbo Lover' made it into the set. Naturally, there's a few tracks from Demolition here as well, but they all sound quite good in live perspective too (it helps that they chose 'Hell is Home', 'One on One' and 'Feed on Me', 'cos I liked those tunes in the first place). I'd say I like Meltdown ever-so-slightly more than this one, not necessarily because of the setlist, but because the sound of Live in London is bigger and more echoey. It was recorded at Brixton Academy, which is a big, but not huge venue, yet it sounds as if it was recorded in an arena. '98 Live Meltdown has more of a smaller club kind of sound, and I guess I just prefer that style overall. This is really just a subjective, minor niggle though - this live album is totally worth your time.
Adam's rating: 8.4/10

ANGEL OF RETRIBUTION          2005         (Sony BMG)

- Standouts: 'Judas Rising', 'Deal With the Devil', 'Revolution', 'Worth Fighting For', 'Demonizer', 'Hellrider', 'Lochness'

There's a handful of albums in my collection that have been slow growers for me; for example, Deep Purple's Slaves and Masters was the only Purple album I genuinely disliked when I first heard it, but as the years have gone by it's become an album that I do at least find listenable and mostly decent nowadays. Another example would have to be Judas Priest's 2005 comeback, Angel of Retribution. The album's been in my collection since my initial infatuation with the band when I was about 15 years old and heard Painkiller for the first time. The only difference is that I never hated this album, I just found it mediocre to begin with. But over the last 15 or so years for me it's gone from mediocre, to pretty good, to genuinely good, to great! I've also reviewed it about 4 times now... so here I go again.

I think my initial 'meh' reaction to this record was mostly due to the fact I just assumed a Rob Halford reunion album should've been a barnburner in the same vein as Painkiller, but that's not necessarily what they were aiming for here anyway. And until more recent years, I never liked the production much either, but I'll get to this later.

Anyway, yeah - Rob's back on the mic after numerous projects of his own, and Priest's struggling tenure with Tim Owens on vocals. Things kick off with a bang; 'Judas Rising' is a bombastic opener with it's harmonic guitar intro, big riffs, tight drumming and of course, a top-notch vocal effort from Rob. It doesn't do the whole 'Painkiller' speed metal thing, but rather takes a more epic and grandiose route to get the machine rolling. Oh, and it's heavy, which is what you want. Track 2 however, does go down the speed metal road, and does it well. 'Deal With the Devil' is a rock-solid slice of molten metal. It's not super-fast, but it's quick enough to excite me and stick in my head afterwards. Yes, they've done better fast songs in the past - but 'Deal With the Devil' is textbook Priest in the best way possible. Some people don't dig 'Revolution' all that much, but I think it's a fun way to break up the pace of the record and keep things fresh. It's simplicity and catchiness is it's strength; it kind of hearkens back to British Steel in that it has definite commercial appeal, but is still more than heavy enough to qualify as 'metal'. This being recorded in 2005 however, means 'Revolution' carries a level of maturity that the older, radio-friendly stuff from the '80s kind of lacks. Yeah, I like it.

I also really like 'Worth Fighting For'. This one's a rock ballad, and continues to keep me interested. It's not corny like some ballads; again, there's a maturity about it, and while it is dramatic, it still has riffs and hooks that make me want to sing along. Rob doesn't go all-out with his vocals on it, but his more subdued approach here actually works in it's favour if you ask me. They do get heavy once again on 'Demonizer'... actually, it might be the heaviest track on the record with it's chugging riffage, rapid-fire drumming and similarities to the Painkiller album. Great stuff. 'Hellrider' is heavy too, and I really dig those guitar harmonics in the intro. And I also really like the layered vocals, and the song as a whole is classic Judas Priest through-and-through. Meanwhile, 'Eulogy' is a dark, albeit brief ballad that manages to remind me of '70s Priest. It feels to me like an introductory piece to the album's closer, 'Lochness'.

Ah, 'Lochness'. This tune has fans divided. Some love it, others fuckin' hate it. Me, I don't know if I love it as such, but I still really like it. It's so dark and doomy in a way you've never heard the Priest before; I get that this isn't the kind of sound people typically consider when they think of Judas Priest, but I just really enjoy the proggy, sinister and experimental feels of this track. I'd agree that it's maybe a few minutes too long at 13 and a half minutes (!!!) - their longest ever track if I'm not mistaken - but the riffs are great, the big epic chorus is memorable and I just like the whole vibe of 'Lochness' overall. Yeah, I'm one of those guys.

In terms of the songs overall, there's only 1 that I flat-out dislike, plus a filler number that is listenable but somewhat uninspired. 'Angel' is the track I don't like. While I commend the band for experimenting - this is another ballad after all - 'Angel' is just a little too soft more liking. I won't slag off Rob; he does a fine job vocally, but this song as a whole just doesn't settle with me. A lot of fans seem to like this one - that's fair, it's just not for me personally. 'Wheels of Fire' is the filler track. It's not bad, just generic with simple mid-tempo open-string riffs from Glenn and KK and a tired-sounding chorus from Rob. Listenable, yes, but it's the kind of song you've heard a million times before, and done better.

Angel of Retribution's production (courtesy of Roy Z) wasn't my cup of tea for a number of years, but I've really grown to love it in recent years. They specifically aimed for a more vintage sound sonically, and you can hear that with the guitar tones. It suits because this album doesn't grab you by the throat from start to finish - it's heavy when it wants to be, but it's also experimental and sophisticated at times as well. And that's why it's grown on me so much as I've gotten older - it's the most experimental Priest record that actually works from start to finish (well, except maybe 'Angel' - just my opinion). Point of Entry was too lightweight overall, Turbo was too plastic, Demolition's modern take was hit-and-miss... but Angel of Retribution just works 95% of the time. I've always admired Priest's willingness to adapt and experiment - sure, there's been occasional missteps as I've just mentioned, but it's something that's kind of been lacking since Richie Faulkner joined. As much as I enjoy the newest albums (Firepower and Invincible Shield are brilliant in fact), AoR feels like classic Priest that tried to be different when it needed to be... if that makes any sense?

So yeah, it's not quite top-tier Priest for me still, but this record is actually great. It just took me a very long time to realise this!!

Adam's rating: 8.3/10

Original review:

Despite the fact I went back and re-reviewed every Judas Priest studio album in 2020 (save for 2018's Firepower, which I finally updated just a couple of days ago), during the first lockdown, I find myself going back and re-reviewing 2005's Angel of Retribution once more, a mere six months later. Why? I think I was a little too harsh on it. I gave it a 5.9/10, then upped the score to a 6 a few months later. But I felt as if I was the only hardcore Judas Priest fan in the world who considered this record to be among their weaker efforts. So here I go again, with review number three! 

This album was a pretty big deal back in '05. The band had parted ways with Tim Owens and Rob Halford had reunited with them in 2003, and they'd been rocking the stages worldwide for a year or so. A new studio album was inevitable, and Angel of Retribution was what they came up with. The good news is that the album automatically has more of a classic Priest sound with Rob back in the fold, and musically the majority of the tracks on here are much more in line with what you'd expect. Demolition didn't exactly win over many fans, and the modern metal styles that were toyed with ultimately failed. It's no surprise then that Rob, Glenn and KK ditched whatever new ingredients Demolition was dishing out.

The opening track, 'Judas Rising', is a scorcher; it's a great way to kickstart the record. It may not be the fastest Priest opener, but it's heavy, it's epic and it's huge. It's no wonder that this song still makes it into the live set from time to time. It's immediately followed by 'Deal With the Devil', which is a nice slab of classic-sounding speed metal, with the Priest stamp of approval all over it. One of my favourite tracks is 'Worth Fighting For'; although not really your typical Priest ballad, is extremely memorable from the nice guitar playing to Rob's vocal hooks. I'd honestly say it's one of their best ballads in general - it's not pretentious, it's not sappy, it's not acoustic, it's not obnoxiously long... it's simply twenty-first century Priest doing a rock ballad! 'Demonizer' is a solid metaller, it has a very Painkiller kind of vibe in it's riffs and vocal structure - so that can't be a bad thing. 'Hellrider' has a power metal kind of thing going for it, and at times, actually sounds quite similar to 'Pestilence and Plague' from the following album, 2008's Nostradamus (spoiler alert!). 'Eulogy' is a nice little mellow interval piece - kind of unnecessary given the song 'Angel' (which I'm getting to, trust me), but certainly not bad.

Although I have had second thoughts about Angel of Retribution since the last review, it's only gone up in my books marginally. I still don't like the second ballad on here, 'Angel'. I love 'Worth Fighting For', but 'Angel' is kind of taking the piss by comparison. Although Halford sings it brilliantly, this acoustic-driven piece of slush is just too soft to comfortably sit on a Priest record of this ilk. Sure, Sad Wings of Destiny had the piano-led 'Epitaph', but the band were much more progressive and still finding their feet in those early days - so it worked. 'Angel' doesn't. And although I don't think the plodding 'Wheels of Fire' is as generic as I initially said it was, it's still very much filler. The riffs are definitely sub-par. 'Revolution' is okay I guess - it's catchy, but it has a little too much of a modern arena rock sound that is very un-Priesty, if ya get what I mean. Sounds more like something from Halford's solo material than Judas Priest if you ask me. I don't really like Roy Z's production much either. He did a good job with the bulk of Halford's solo band, but the guitars just aren't as heavy or as aggressive-sounding as they should be. I read KK Downing's book (Heavy Duty: Days and Nights in Judas Priest), and I think I remember him stating that the guitars were intentionally made to sound more like vintage, 70's Priest, and while it works on 'Worth Fighting For', it makes a bombastic song like 'Judas Rising' or 'Deal With the Devil' sound less heavy than they really are. That said, this is not an unprofessionally horrible-sounding or poorly-produced album by any means.

The closing track, the thirteen and a half minute 'Lochness' is one that has the fans divided. A lot seem to really hate it, and find it embarrassingly dumb, while others love it. I know the band love it, but given the reception, it never made it into a live set. I'm indifferent. I don't love it or hate it. The lyrical concept, which is obviously all about the Monster, is kinda stupid and Spinal Tap-like, granted, but I do quite like the doomy, almost Black Sabbath-inspired riffs that accompany the lyrics. And the chorus is quite memorable too, in a fun way. I agree that the track is way too long, but honestly, I don't mind hearing this number on occasion.

So there you go, I no longer consider Angel of Retribution to be Priest's autopilot record. It has a few great tracks on it, along with a couple of dodgy or filler ones. And yes, it does still have it's shortcomings, and given the fact that this was a major comeback reunion album, it probably isn't as good as it should be. But it is still good, so there's that.
Adam's rating: 7.4/10

NOSTRADAMUS          2008          (Sony BMG)

- Standouts: 'Death', 'Prophecy', 'Nostradamus', 'Visions', 'Pestilence and Plague', 'Revelations'

I'm not sure why, but sometimes when bands go about recording a concept album, they go into the project with much more experimentation than usual, and the overall result is often an overblown slog of a record that is a chore to sit through. Sadly, I find a lot of what I just said to be true of Nostradamus, the band's first concept record that just so happens to be their first and so far only double album too. This thing got a lot of a hate across metal forums and discussion sites when it was new; some people regard it as the worst entry in their discography full-stop.

While Nostradamus certainly does feature a long list of it's own issues, I don't think I'd go so far as to call it their worst. Honestly, I still think Turbo is much dumber than this album, even if Nostradamus kind of ends up being unintentionally dumb in it's own right at times. See, this album is really symphonic and melodic overall, and while it does still have some quality ingredients scattered here and there across both discs, it definitely takes itself way too seriously. The reason for this is due to a combination of factors; obviously the added inclusion of all the keyboards and strings effect Priest's signature sound by quite a large margin, but with all the lyrics revolving around the Sixteenth century astrologer himself - Michel de Nostradamus - it's clear that Rob Halford and co. were treading way out of their comfort zone. I guess I can give the band some credit for really putting in the effort to try something different (probably something they really wanted to do themselves), but it's kind of hard to take the words seriously when the first major track's chorus ('Prophecy') is literally "I AM NOSTRADAMUS! Do you believe? I AM NOSTRADAMUS! That I conceive!". The life of the man Nostradamus as a concept is something I'd expect to see in an opera, or even some kind of intellectual play. Yet here we are, Rob Halford - a gay Brummie known for dressing in leather, riding Harley Davidson's on stage and screaming "HE! IS! THE PAINKILLER!!!" - narrating Nostradamus' life on a Judas Priest album.

So, the lyrical matter has been handled in a pretty silly manner for the most part then, but honestly, I think the music itself is mostly pretty good. Well, aside from all the stupid, melodic intervals that is. The album is full of shorter, melancholic tracks that usually serve as introductions to the actual, full-length songs, and these get very tiresome very quickly. Part of the reason why Nostradamus has been split into two CD's is because of these tracks, and the only one I really care about is 'Peace', which is actually quite beautiful in it's own right. But as far as the real songs go, musically I think they can range from okay to superb. With all the extra instrumentation going on behind the usual guitars and drums, a lot of the riffs here probably aren't as heavy as they potentially could be, but they're still good. Honestly, 'Pestilence and Plague' is phenomenal - it's symphonic metal done right. And 'Death' is unbelievably good - it's an extremely dark and brooding track that sort of has a 'Touch of Evil'/'Night Crawler' (at least that mellow, 'evil' part of 'Night Crawler' anyway...) - it just works perfectly. And as stupid as 'Prophecy' may be, I think both the riffs and Rob's approach to his vocals are bordering on classic Priest - and it sounds awesome in live perspective. I first saw the band at the start of 2009 when they were still touring for this album, and they opened with 'Prophecy' - needless to say it was awesome (then again, I was only 16 at the time and thought almost all live metal was awesome...).

There's other shimmers of greatness to be had too - I really like 'Awakening', 'Visions' is great, and even the cheesy title song is musically and structurally a great slab of melodic speed metal, pulled off in true Priest spirit. Hell, I like 'Conquest' and 'Persecution' as well. Honestly, the majority of the actual songs here are good, and I actually find many of them to be superior to much of the tracklisting on Angel of Retribution. The strings and keyboards are used on the aforementioned songs in a way that really adds to the atmosphere; enough to make them a change from the norm when compared to other Priest albums, and enough for them to qualify as symphonic metal. But Glenn and KK's guitars haven't been buried in the mix either, meaning most of the songs are still very much guitar-driven over anything else. And even if Rob is sometimes spouting some his most moronic lyrics, he easily has the voice for this kind of project, hence I can't keep taking the piss. It's probably a good thing that the band hired keyboard maestro Don Airey for this album - a man who has played with just about every major hard rock/classic heavy metal act at some point in time (and currently a member of Deep Purple).

Sucks that Nostradamus is full of pointless, short experimental numbers to sit through. And not every full-length song here is great either - 'Lost Love' is a little too melancholic for my liking (at least by Priest's standards anyway) and I don't really enjoy 'Exiled' and 'New Beginnings' all that much either. Really, if you cut out about a third of the material and relegated the whole thing to a single disc, you'd have a much better album. An ideal tracklisting for me would be:

1. 'Propehcy'
2. 'Revelations'
3. 'War'
4. 'Pestilence and Plague'
5. 'Death'
6. 'Peace'
7. 'Conquest'
8. 'Persecution'
9. 'Visions'
10. 'Nostradamus'
11. 'Future of Mankind'

This would make for a much better Priest album, honestly. I'd easily have given it around a 7.5/10, maybe more if this were the case. As it stands, I just find Nostradamus to be far too long overall. Lyrically, it's questionable, but overall I think the music speaks for itself. This is still Priest, and it's certainly more inspired than either Angel of Retribution or Demolition - and the good songs here are far better than most of what you heard on an album like Ram It Down. As it happens, I even upped the score here from a 6 to a 6.6, because Nostradamus was actually better than I remembered. But as an overall product, there's still a lot of overblown crap to sit through in between the good stuff. I have seen instances of this album being re-evaluated though - like they were onto something here, people just didn't get it at the time. I've seen a surprising amount of praise for it in recent years on places like YouTube and the Metal-Archives, so maybe it'll become more popular in years to come? Like Demolition, I own two copies of Nostradamus. One copy is my original basic jewel case release, which I bought when the album first came out in 2008, the other is the lyric book hardbound edition. I won that version in an eBay auction many years later, for just £6.99. Cool collector's item.

On a side note, KK Downing retired in 2011 and this was his last album with the Priest. His golf course business went to shit in recent years - which is actually quite local to where I live - and since then he's opened a venue in Wolverhampton (pretty cool place - been there a few times myself) and trying to reunite with the band with no result. As of 2020 he's formed 'KK's Priest', which features Tim Owens on vocals and Les Binks on drums, and are currently working on album which could be interesting.

Adam's rating: 6.6/10

COLLECTIONS          2008          (Sony BMG)

Weird compilation, because of the ten songs, there are two from British Steel, three from Turbo, two from Defenders Of The Faith, two from Angel Of Retribution and one live track. So yeah, quite a strange track list. Picked this up for £1.99 many years ago when I was first getting more into the Priest, so it did the job back then I guess.  

A TOUCH OF EVIL: LIVE          2009          (Sony BMG)

Ah, now this is how you compile a live album at the later stages of your career! A Touch of Evil: Live really feels like it was put together for the serious Priest fans, like me! It's only eleven tracks, but the bulk of the material here is stuff that isn't regularly performed by the band. I know I ragged a little on Angel of Retribution, but 'Judas Rising' and 'Hellrider' are definitely great when played live, and I'm thankful they're on here. You also get 'Between the Hammer and the Anvil', 'Riding on the Wind', 'Dissident Aggressor' and 'Eat Me Alive' - these are all legit, molten metal Priest classics that I'd much prefer to have on a live record over yet more versions of 'Breaking the Law', 'Grinder', 'Metal Gods', 'You've Got Another Thing Comin'' etc.. There's also a couple of Nostradamus songs - 'Prophecy' and 'Death'. Nostradamus is the Priest album people love to hate (but also one that has a fanbase of it's own...), but I thought a lot of the songs were great individually, and seeing as I saw the band for the first time when that album was still new, it does hold some kind of significance for me personally. So yeah, this disc is essential listening. 'Dissident Aggressor' from this album won the Grammy award for Best Metal Performance in 2010, which was kind of unexpected.
Adam's rating: 9/10

SETLIST - THE VERY BEST OF JUDAS PRIEST LIVE          2010          (Sony Music)

I rarely buy compilations; most of the ones I do own are bands I only listen to casually or ones that I picked up when I was a teen because I couldn't afford to keep buying studio albums. This disc contains live material only, and I actually like the idea of live-only compilations. The main reason I picked it up however, was when I heard it contained two rare live tracks, 'Beyond The Realms Of Death' (recorded in 1978) and 'You've Got Another Thing Comin' (released in 1983). The rest of the songs are a mish-mash of cuts from 1979's seminal Unleashed In The East, 1986's Priest...Live! and 2009's A Touch Of Evil - Live. As a collectors CD, it's kinda cool and still in wide circulation at the moment, so getting a copy cheap is easy.

HALFORD - HALFORD IV: MADE OF METAL         2010         (Metal God Entertainment)

- Standouts: 'Speed of Sound', 'Till the Day I Die', 'The Mower'

Another Halford album, meaning you can pretty much go into it knowing what to expect. I do however, find this one to be less consistent than Crucible (and certainly weaker than Resurrection), but there's a few tracks here that are better than anything from said record. Wait, why I am not comparing to this, the fourth album, to Halford III? Well for starters, I don't own Halford III as it was a Christmas album, so it's not exactly on my priority list of albums to pick up! Anyhow, there's a couple of iffy moments on Made of Metal. The actual music, riffs etc. to opener 'Undisputed' are just fine, but the lyrics and the way Rob sings the chorus is just flat-out cringe worthy ("He's the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world!"), and pretty much ruins the song for me. The title track is mostly decent, but it too has one stupid flaw - the robotic, synthy voice effect Rob used for the "Supersonic silver flying machine..." line that comes and goes. Ugh, it's just lame and unfitting! I'm not the biggest fan of the ballad 'We Own the Night' either, but it's not horrible or anything. Also, the album's too damn long again! It's composed of fourteen tracks, and lasts over an hour in total. Again, album's like this that are simply there to please metalheads and aren't trying to be ambitious don't need to last that long. Whatever, at least the production's great. Er, well, the guitar tones and drum sounds are fine, but I can barely hear the bass this time, so it kind of sounds a little flat. Not completely awful, but definitely patchy to say the least, which is kind of surprising given the decent job Roy Z did on Resurrection and Crucible. Not this time then!

Onto the good stuff. 'Speed of Sound' has a particularly great chorus, and some of the guitar melodies have an Iron Maiden/Thin Lizzy-like touch to them, which is cool. 'Till the Day I Die' starts off with a little slide guitar, surprisingly, and the vocal arrangements and lyrics are extremely catchy. It's bluesy heavy metal! The riffs in 'Hell Razor' sort of remind me of Priest's 'Dissident Aggressor' from Sin After Sin, and that's cool. The second ballad, 'Twenty-Five Years' is better than 'We Own the Night'. Oh, and the final track here, 'The Mower', blows anything else Rob has done with this band out of the water. This song is heavy as hell, with brutally detuned, viscous guitars and Rob sounding positively demonic! I wish the whole album sounded this way.

Most of the songs here are pretty good overall, some very good, but there's a few questionable ideas scattered here and there that don't do the record justice. The thin-sounding production doesn't exactly help either. It's a competent, passable metal album, but let's be honest, often when I hear Rob Halford's solo material, it just makes me want to listen to Judas Priest more. I'll admit I'm kind of biased about them, but there's nothing that Rob's solo bands do that are better than Priest. Priest are a larger-than-life, god-tier metal band, so trying to compete is almost always going to be a losing battle. In a way, part of me would like to hear him involved in more drastically different kind of side-projects. I know the industrial metal sounds of 2wo flopped, but I think there's talks of him releasing a blues album, and that immediately sounds cool to me. Also, I remember hearing a long time ago that he was interested in doing a black metal album of some sort. That'd be cool too!

Adam's rating: 6.5/10

EPITAPH (Blu-Ray)          2013          (Legacy)

This live Blu-Ray disc was filmed in 2012 on the Epitaph World Tour, and features the entire Hammersmith Apollo concert in London. I saw the band on this tour in 2011, only it was the Wolverhampton date at the Civic Hall. Exactly the same setlist though, which is why I bought this Blu-Ray. The Epitaph tour was intended to be the band's farewell, but according to Rob Halford and his autobiography, Confess, with Richie Faulkner now in the band, the rest of the members felt he'd brought new and exciting chemistry to the group. Hence, the band are still touring to this day. Of course, KK Downing was supposed to be there originally, but after his sudden departure, they had to recruit Richie at the last minute. 

From what I remember, this was a great gig. They played at least one track from every album (bar the one's with Tim Owens) - yes, even Rocka Rolla! I remember rockin' out to 'Never Satisfied' quite clearly! To be fair, a lot of the show is still quite clear to me, probably because I went by myself and had the work the next day, so I enjoyed the entire gig in a sober state... One thing I will say, having watched this disc again, is that Glenn Tipton was clearly struggling with some of the solos, particularly the shredding one in 'Painkiller'. The sad fact is, he already had Parkinson's at this point, but he hadn't revealed it publicly yet (though I think the band knew). I personally don't remember hearing any errors from Glenn at the gig I attended, but then again I was stood pretty much directly in front of Richie and probably wasn't paying as much attention to Glenn. Anyhow, the band in general sound great, and this was a cool tour. A live CD to accompany this video would've been nice, but you can't have it all.

REDEEMER OF SOULS          2014          (Epic)

- Standouts: 'Dragonaut', 'Redeemer of Souls', 'Halls of Valhalla', 'Sword of Damocles', 'March of the Damned', 'Metalizer', 'Battle Cry'

Unlike Angel of Retribution, which kept getting better and better over time for me, I've always liked the band's 2014 comeback, Redeemer of Souls. I liked it, but I never loved it. And yet it's one of their albums I keep coming back to quite regularly. It's not even one of my favourites (although it has gotten better still over time for me), but it seems to draw me back over and over again! What is it about this record then? It may be the fact I find it to be something of an oddity in the catalogue. Not in the same way the Tim Owens albums were, and musically it doesn't necessarily do anything particularly 'new' for the band either. No, I think it's a combination of other factors that makes this an interesting record to me.

KK Downing handed in his P45 around the end of 2010 and quit the band after much drama (mostly down to Glenn Tipton and manager Jayne Andrews). This was a surprise to me and presumably a lot of other fans at the time. I don't recall it being a known thing that KK and Glenn had issues with one another prior to his departure, but maybe I'm wrong? Either way, KK had been with the band since almost their inception in 1969, and if you ask me was just as important to their legacy as Glenn, Rob or Ian. Still, Judas Priest announced a replacement for KK, one Richie Faulkner who'd played in Lauren Harris' band (daughter of Iron Maiden bassist and mastermind Steve Harris). Ritchie is almost 30 years younger than KK and depending on who you ask, is either the best thing to happen to the band in god knows how long, or is an inferior shadow of his replacement. My thoughts? Well, I saw the band on what was supposed to be their farewell - the Epitaph tour in 2011 (Faulkner's live debut). In all fairness, I thought he was good. Good but not great. Since then however, I've seen the Priest in 2015, 2018, 2021 and 2024 and by the time the 2018 performance rolled by I can honestly say that Richie owns the stage live now. He plays the classics and newer stuff he's co-written like their his own, and it feels like he's been with Priest for far longer than 14 years at this point (which is still a fair amount of time to be with a band anyway). So I'm definitely in the camp that's in total support of Ritchie, particularly after the amazing Firepower and Invincible Shield albums that came later (and his stage power of course). Even Rob and Glenn have both credited the man in saving Judas Priest, so you have to give him some credit even if you're a KK Downing purist. I only ever got to see Priest with KK once way back in 2009 when I was 17, so I do have some sort of sentimental attachment to Richie at this point.

Of course, before the critically-acclaimed Firepower and Invincible Shield records though, we had Redeemer of Souls in 2014. Maybe I welcomed it with open arms by default simply for the fact the album returned to a more straightforward, signature Priest heavy metal sound unlike the symphonic concept experiment that was Nostradamus? Maybe so, but there's a handful of tracks on this record that are die hard Priest classics in my opinion. Some have grown on me immensely over the years; for example, the monolithic 'Halls of Valhalla' is absolutely awesome to my ears. The chorus is totally epic, the riffs are prime Priest and the whole song just screams metal to me in the best possible way. It's easily one of the best songs of the modern Priest era (i.e. the Richie Faulkner years) in my humble opinion, and one that I'd stick on my own Priest 'greatest hits' compilation in a heartbeat. I also love the title track which represents the character on the great album cover. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about this song, it's just a thunderous mid-tempo number with great riffs and a surprisingly catchy chorus. I also think 'Dragonaut' is a strong opener to the record; it may not be all that fast as such, but it's full of cool riffs and definitely offers up enough grunt to let you know you're in for a celebration of metal. My other favourites from this album are 'Sword of Damocles', which I only realised I loved after I saw the band live again last year. This track has made it's way into the live setlist for the Invincible Shield tour. Again it's mid-tempo, but the riffing is inspired as hell, the chorus offers a nice anthemic quality and I think it features some of Rob's best vocals on the album. The last song I'm a big fan of is 'March of the Damned'. I've seen it get some stick over the years for being too simplistic, but it's that simplicity that reminds me of the sort of stuff they were doing on British Steel, or 'Revolution' from Angel of Retribution (which I also like). Sometimes a straightforward heavy metal cut can work just fine, especially when it's the Priest performing it.

For the most part, I do like many of the other songs too. 'Down in Flames' has a cool lead guitar intro and lots of catchy vocal arrangements, 'Cold Blooded' is a ballad-inspired number with some excellent guitar soloing that thankfully still has plenty of muscle backing it and 'Crossfire' is a surprisingly bluesy cut that may even hearken back to their earliest Rocka Rolla sound of the '70s. 'Metalizer' is kinda cool too. The lyrics are silly and sort of remind me of 'Painkiller' in that department, but Priest being cheesy is fine in my books. And musically the riffs in this one are mostly fast and hit me hard. Oh, and 'Battle Cry' is nice as well. Again, fast riffs and that unmistakeable sound of '80s Defenders of the Faith-era Priest. Hell, maybe even Painkiller. 

But then of course, there's the unavoidable filler that I can't exactly just gloss over. 'Hell & Back' is - and there's no other way of saying this - boring. Other than the cool '70s-inspired riffs towards the end (why they didn't focus the rest of the song in this style is baffling), it plods along at snails' pace. It isn't necessarily horrible to listen to, just tired and half-arsed. Same thing can be said for 'Secrets of the Dead'. They're just phoning it in on this one! The spoken-word segments almost make it feel like a reject Nostradamus track. The last song, 'Beginning of the End' is an absolute snore-fest. It's a ballad - fine I guess, but there's no power here whatsoever. It's atmosphere is kinda nice I suppose, but the song itself is massively forgettable. People like to hate on Angel of Retribution's 'Lochness', but at least that was a creative way to end that record on. I think the problem is that they stuffed 13 normal-length tracks onto this album, and that's almost always a red flag for me. It's probably not easy to make an hour-long album of 13 songs that's only high quality from start to finish. 2005's comeback Angel of Retribution was just 10 songs and 52 minutes long, and was all the better for it.

One thing that is totally unavoidable when discussing Redeemer of Souls is the botched production. It's not uncommon at all to see people hate on this album's sonic tones. Ian Hill's bass isn't exactly audible while Glenn and Richie's guitar tones are surprisingly thin and hollow. Listen to this and then Firepower or Invincible Shield back-to-back and either of those albums absolutely crush this one sonically. Amazingly, I don't have much issue with Redeemer's production. When it dropped in 2014 I don't recall ever being distracted by the album in this sense. It wasn't until Firepower came out in 2018 that I really noticed the difference in quality. But even so, I still don't have much of a problem with Redeemer's overall sound. I think the fact it gets brought up so much in Priest fan communities (I follow a few on Facebook and Reddit) means I can't exactly not mention it. I totally get why others may have a problem with it, and while I agree it's flawed (can't deny that), it doesn't do enough to really piss me off.

I've got the deluxe version which comes with a bonus disc featuring 5 extra tracks. Very cool - I'd much rather 5 newly-recorded original songs instead of pointless demo recordings of album songs like so many other bands like to give out as a bonus. Only problem is, I'm only really a fan of 1 of these tracks - give me the ballsy 'Creatures' over 'Beginning of the End', 'Secrets of the Dead' and 'Hell & Back' any day of the week. The rest of them are not exactly 'bad' (most like 'Snakebite', 'Bring it On' etc. are quite simplistic, anthemic Priest numbers in similar vein to British Steel or Point of Entry), you can just see why they were left off the resulting album. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these were recorded when Richie first joined the band and was trying to get a feel for the songwriting process. Still, the deluxe album is certainly the version to buy. Any extra Priest tracks are welcome, even mediocre ones!

Well, I wasn't expecting to score Redeemer of Souls an 8/10 for this updated review, but I've done the maths and it only seems fair. As I said at the start of the review, I actually find myself returning to it a lot - and songs like 'Halls of Valhalla' and 'Sword of Damocles' I listen to in playlists all the bloody time. Add to the fact that out of 13 tracks, I really like 10 of them. 5 of them are classics, and the more I think about it, 'Battle Cry' might be too. I'll get back to you in a few weeks! Even if the production isn't great, it's not necessarily bad to my ears. This Judas Priest fan will continue to rock this album for many more years to come!

Adam's rating: 8/10

Original review:

Being the Priest fan that I am, I was psyched for this record back in 2014. Since I'm re-reviewing all of Priest's back catalogue (at least all the studio albums, that is), I must admit that Nostradamus was better than I had remembered, but in retrospect, I never really liked it. It was a passion project, not the average Judas Priest album. Redeemer of Souls is a sort of comeback for the band, given the mixed reception of Nostradamus, and was the first album to feature KK Downing's replacement, one Ritchie Faulkner - a man several decades younger than KK, who used to play guitar in Steve Harris' daughter's band. I've read a lot of different opinions online of Faulkner - some feel they needed a new guy to give the rest of the band a good kick up the arse, others say KK was an integral cog in the songwriting machine, and live performances that Ritchie is a mere shadow of his replacement. What do I think? Well, personally, I feel having Ritchie in the band definitely has it's positives. For a start, I feel Redeemer was the best album the Priest had made since the 90's (until 2018's Firepower at least), and I've seen the band 3 times since Faulkner came into the band and they've been enjoyable each time. However, I must admit that it was weird seeing the band on stage with him in 2011 for the Epitaph tour, since then however, I feel he fits in just fine at the end of the day. Plus, this is a band that made 2 records without their iconic vocalist, so a new guitarist in the band wasn't really a huge shock to me.

About Redeemer of Souls however, I think it's a good, solid Priest record with mostly good tracks; some very good ones, that ticks most of the boxes you'd expect to be ticked when discussing the average Judas Priest album. I mean, Angel of Retribution sort of did the same thing, but wasn't perfect either way. Redeemer is a tad stronger in my opinion, though it too does play things a little bit too safe again overall. The band are writing quality heavy metal tunes once again, but they're really not going all out either - you just don't get the same sense of sheer energy and power like you do on an album like Painkiller or Defenders of the Faith for example. Maybe this comes with age, but honestly, read my review of 2018's Firepower below (spoilers) - the Priest can still truly rock it when they want to! 

That said, there isn't anything inherently 'wrong' with the majority of this CD either. Songs like 'Dragonaut', 'Halls of Valhalla' and 'Metalizer' are as metal as they come and have that classic Priest stamp of approval all over them. Some of the mid-paced numbers like 'Sword of Damocles', 'Hell & Back' and the title track are extremely solid too, and there's even a fun and simple, British Steel-esque, catchy single in 'March of the Damned'. All good tracks, but it's really difficult to actually go into a lot of detail about them because none of them truly stand out as classic tunes. One definite gripe I have is the production. Honestly, until they followed this album up in 2018, I didn't really have any complaints, but the sad reality is Redeemer sounds a bit thin overall. It's mostly the lack of bass and the 'tinny' guitar tones. It kind of sounds as if they were attempting to replicate the sound of something like Painkiller - but those albums sound the way they do because they were made an awful long time ago. Had this album been recorded with a more rich and 'full' sound, I do think a song like 'Dragonaut' or 'Redeemer of Souls' could potentially stand as classics in the future, but as it stands, they don't quite cut it. Like I said though, I never had a problem with it initially - and in all fairness, I still don't think about it much now either.

Despite all my negativity though, I do like this album overall. Like I said, they were playing it safe, and with a new member in the band replacing someone else who'd been there since the beginning, I can't blame them really. Let's be honest, they weren't going to try anything radical like Nostradamus again, nor were they going to revisit the vintage sounds of their 70's output. Nope, they went down the "let's be as metal as possible" path again, and the result is another decent slab of true heavy metal. 

Adam's rating: 7.5/10

BATTLE CRY          2016          (Columbia)

A live album of their headlining performance at the infamous Wacken Open Air festival in 2015. I saw them just weeks before at Download festival, so the setlist was pretty similar overall. This era of the band was the beginning of the end for Glenn Tipton as far as live performances with him went. Sadly, Parkinson's disease got the best of him and despite not publicly announcing it until 2018, he'd actually been diagnosed with it in 2008. I first saw Priest live in 2009, so technically every time I've caught them live, Glenn's been living with Parkinson's. I don't think his live performances really began to slip until the Epitaph tour in 2011-12, but I only noticed this when I bought the Blu-Ray video and watched it some years after I saw them live on that tour myself. I don't even remember seeing Glenn struggling when I saw them at the aforementioned Download in 2015. And to be honest, it's impossible to pick up on throughout this live CD too. Of course, Glenn is still a band member as of 2025, he's just much more involved in the studio and songwriting rather than on stage these days. Fair play to the man.

Anyhow, Battle Cry is a fun live disc. It's far from one of Priest's greatest live albums, and I honestly think they've only gotten better live as the years have gone on since Ritchie Faulkner joined the band. I've seen them 5 times since 2011 when Ritchie made his debut on the Epitaph tour and the 2018, 2021 and 2024 performances I've seen have all been brilliant. Of course, this being a 2015 gig means Redeemer of Souls was the only album he'd made with the Priest at that point, and while said album isn't one of their greatest, the songs do sound cool live. The fact they picked stronger tracks like the molten metal 'Dragonaut', the thunderous 'Redeemer of Souls' and the epic 'Halls of Valhalla' for the setlist helps. Good stuff. Some of the setlist is your pretty standard affair - 'Victim of Changes', 'Metal Gods', 'Breaking the Law', 'Painkiller', 'You've Got Another Thing Comin'' etc., but they also threw some slightly deeper cuts in there too; the masterpiece ballad 'Beyond the Realms of Death' makes an appearance, as do 'Devil's Child' and 'Jawbreaker'. So the setlist is certainly varied enough for me to recommend this CD. And the band themselves are playing well together, with Rob sounding energised and the rest of the band as well-oiled as you'd expect. Nothing mind-blowing here by any means, but totally worth having in any Priest fans' collection.

A good live album then - not great, but good. Like I said in the beginning of this review, I think they've gotten better the longer Faulkner has stayed with the band, and I'm surprised they didn't release any live recordings from the Firepower tour. Maybe they will once they've finished touring in support of the most recent album, Invincible Shield from 2024? I certainly hope so! Interestingly enough, the band have recently revisited Redeemer of Souls by adding 'Sword of Damocles' to the setlist for the Invincible Shield tour. I didn't think they'd ever touch this material again, but here we are.

Adam's rating: 7.5/10

FIREPOWER          2018          (Epic)
- Standouts: 'Firepower', 'Lightning Strike', 'Never the Heroes', 'Necromancer', 'Flame Thrower', 'Traitors Gate', 'Sea of Red'

I love this band. Despite the fact they only left a lukewarm impression with me when I first heard British Steel (my gateway) aged 13, when I picked up Painkiller towards the end of school aged 15, I was immediately hooked on Judas Priest's brand of heavy metal. To think there was a time when I actually preferred Iron Maiden to Judas Priest! Ha! With the departure of KK Downing in 2010, and Glenn Tipton's struggle with Parkinson's, the Priest have obviously seen a few unintentional changes over the past decade. Thankfully, the biggest change - exceptional guitarist Richie Faulkner - has quickly evolved and moulded himself as a formidable member of the band. I've seen him live with the band three times in total, right from the Epitaph tour in 2011 up until 2018 and he's only gotten better each time. And 2014's Redeemer of Souls had a bunch of great tracks on it, but was marred by a disappointing production job. On the 2018 follow-up, Firepower, I can happily confirm that the Priest are back with a vengeance and firing on all cylinders! Seriously! I was so happy when my pre-order arrived and I heard this album for the first time - it improves on Redeemer in basically every respect, and I enjoyed the hell out of it right away.

This record begins with the blazing title track, which is a sort of 'Painkiller'-ish speed metal Priest burner, and it kicks ass. It's better than anything from the predecessor, and to me just screams out "the Priest is back!!!"! Again, in true Painkiller fashion, 'Lightning Strike' has a thunderous, galloping, 'Hell Patrol'-style groove. 'Evil Never Dies' is heavy but also has one of the catchiest pre-chorus/choruses on the whole album. I think it almost sounds like some of the slower Megadeth material from the 90's, only with better vocals of course. There's a great and extremely memorable ballad/arena anthem in 'Never the Heroes' that I think is comparable to 'Worth Fighting For' from Angel of Retribution. One of the heaviest songs is 'Necromancer', which has that classic, 'Electric Eye'-style fast, chugging riffage, and a killer chorus to boot. The short piano introduction to 'Rising from Ruins' kind of reminds me of 'Epitaph', whereas 'Rising from Ruins' itself is a fabulous and epic ballad. 'Flame Thrower' gets back to the ass-kicking with it's up-tempo intensity, and 'Traitors Gate' is just awesome, thunderous, heavy, pummelling, powerful... 100% metal! I also love the slow and heavy, Black Sabbath-y 'Lone Wolf' - maybe it sounds a little more like something Rob Halford would do with his solo bands, but it's great either way. The final track, 'Sea of Red' is a melodic ballad with an acoustic introduction.

The band really do sound excellent on Firepower. I mean, Rob Halford still sounds absolutely brilliant on here, his age seemingly unaffecting his ability as a vocalist. Thanks to the wide variety of styles throughout the tracks, he gets to display most of his range on the record. And in terms of riffs and solos, Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner are really on it - especially on 'Necromancer', 'Flame Thrower', 'Lone Wolf', 'Firepower' and 'Lightning Strike'. These are the best Priest songs guitar-wise since Painkiller. And unlike Redeemer of Souls, the production on Firepower is tip-top. They got the much in-demand metal producer/guitar player Andy Sneap, and even brought back legendary producer Tom Allom (who produced the bulk of the band's 80's records) as well. In regards to the way this album sounds, I have no complaints whatsoever. Zilch.

Do I have anything negative to say here? Well, I guess with a fourteen-song tracklisting, not everything on here is going to stand out, even if I think each track is most definitely solid at the very least. I suppose 'Spectre' and 'No Surrender', as good as they are, aren't favourites of mine. And KK Downing even suggested whether or not Glenn Tipton even played on this album full-stop (which the band denied). I get that KK and Glenn have had their issues since the 70's, but given Tipton's struggles with Parkinson's, it sort of does make sense. Andy Sneap has been filling in for Glenn for the majority of the gigs these days, with Glenn only coming on stage for the encores and performing the less complex songs such as 'Metal Gods', 'Breaking the Law' and 'Living After Midnight' etc., but then again, playing the Firepower numbers with Parkinson's in a studio is probably a lot less stressful than playing them in front of thousands of people on stage. Either way, this isn't really a criticism of the record, just something I wanted to address.

Firepower is the best Priest album in years. It doesn't do anything ground-breaking for the band per say, it just draws most of the diverse musical aspects of the band's history and pulls each and every one of these aspects off brilliantly with ease. Redeemer of Souls was trying to do the same thing, but the production wasn't quite right, and the songwriting wasn't always there either, but on Firepower, things have fallen into place much more smoothly. It's really quite remarkable just how good the band can still be this late into their career. Long live the Priest!

Adam's rating: 9/10

KK'S PRIEST - SERMONS OF THE SINNER          2021         (EX1 Records)

- Standouts: 'Hellfire Thunderbolt', 'Sermons of the Sinner', 'Sacerdote y Diablo', 'Return of the Sentinel'

I read KK Downing's book last year (Heavy Duty: Days and Nights in Judas Priest) - he's been out of Priest since 2011, but has been keeping busy with other projects. He built a golf course, and then opened a venue in Wolverhampton - the Steel Mill, both of which are local to me (in fact, I've been to concerts at the Steel Mill multiple times over the last four or so years). But as for new music, he didn't actually release anything until 2021 with new band KK's Priest. Of course, he was expecting to be invited back into Judas Priest after Glenn Tipton's struggles with Parkinson's, but to no avail. He and Glenn still aren't on good terms with each other from what I understand, so instead we got this. I must admit, I was really curious to hear this record when I first heard about it in 2020, or whenever the hell the news was first announced. The lineup included KK on lead guitar (obviously), Tim Owens on vocals and legendary former Judas Priest drummer Les Binks (who played on Stained Class and Killing Machine) - many die hard Priest fans will tell you Binks was the best drummer the group ever had... I dunno about that, but he'd easily be second to Scott Travis either way. So, a new band with three former Priest members then. Umm, sadly Les Binks dropped out from the recording of Sermons of the Sinner due to a hand or wrist injury or something, but supposedly will still perform live with the band. Whatever! We still got KK and Ripper Owens, so it could be worse I guess.

Anyway, despite my curiousness, I still had mixed emotions towards this project. Calling the band 'KK's Priest' was an instant turn-off. I mean, I get that Downing is still kind of bitter about not being allowed back in Priest (despite the fact he left with little warning), but calling your own band 'KK's Priest' sounds like some kind of blatant and desperate attempt at a rivalry with Judas Priest. He should have just released the album as 'KK Downing - Sermons of the Sinner'. Also, the man hadn't written or recorded anything in a studio for ten plus years - so the songwriting could have easily been quite rusty on paper. But then of course, the other part of me was kinda glad he was back performing once again. And I've always liked Tim Owens as a singer. I still enjoy Jugulator all these years later, and I actually kinda liked the stuff he did with Iced Earth (in fact, I actually saw Tim fronting Iced Earth live way back in 2007...).

So, I've listened to this album a handful of times the past few months, and I do think the first three tracks here are pretty damn strong. 'Hellfire Thunderbolt' is a really solid, metallic opener. It's very much a Painkiller-esque epic speed metal opener, good riffs and excellent vocals, with Tim doing his best Halford impersonations. The title track follows in the same direction, and is once again very comparable to Painkiller or any of the more recent Priest albums, with another superb screaming banshee vocal performance from Owens. 'Sacerdote y Diablo' is a heavy, yet very melodic slice of true metal. Stupid lyrics, sure, but in terms of everything else I really enjoy this track. 'Metal Through and Through' is a dumb song title, and it's too long at over eight minutes. But I still like the bulk of the riffs on it, and the solos are really good too. 'Wild and Free' isn't gonna blow you away, but it's a simple speedy track placed at the right time on the album, so it flows quite nicely. As does 'Hail for the Priest', which again features a stupid generic song title, but is actually rather good in most other respects. 'Return of the Sentinel' - which is obviously a nod to 'The Sentinel' from Defenders of the Faith - is kind of overblown at nine minutes, but is still decent on the whole. KK really shreds on this one, and it was oddly warming to hear some of the recycled guitar parts of 'The Sentinel' on here. Yeah, it works for me.

Naturally, this album's not perfect though. KK used to write songs as a team with Rob Halford and Glenn Tipton - on Sermons of the Sinner, he's pretty much writing everything himself. 'Raise Your Fist' is a serviceable anthem, but it is pretty generic. It's certainly not as good any of the anthemic tunes Judas Priest have done since KK's departure. 'Brothers of the Road', again, is not terrible, but is definitely uninspired next to the best stuff on this record. It's a forgettable mid-tempo biker anthem, like KK was trying to sound like Saxon, only not as good. Also, I'm not entirely sure about the production. Compare this to Priest's Firepower, and that album absolutely blows this one out of the water in terms of sound (well, and songs for that matter). The guitars have this really dry, underwhelming tone sadly.

I liked Sermons of the Sinner overall. It's kind of what I was expecting to be honest. The music is certainly comparable to that of latter-day Judas Priest, KK's guitar solos and licks in particular are still great - plus, Tim Owens gives a very strong vocal performance, in my opinion better than his one on Demolition. However, the band may well be called 'KK's Priest', but there certainly are not two different Judas Priests right now. As good as this album is, the riffs, the lyrics, the production are all not to the same standard as an album like Priest's Firepower. Granted, I haven't had a chance to see KK's Priest in concert yet (it's weird that he still hasn't done a show at the Steel Mill yet...), so I can't speak for the live setting - but let's be honest, it's hard to imagine them being better than the real Judas Priest live. Even if they are sticking old Priest tunes in the setlist (which I 100% assume they will do), are they seriously gonna make people stop caring about the real Priest?! I doubt it. Still, for what it's worth, this is definitely worth a listen if you are a JP fan. If KK does another album with this group, I honestly think it'll only improve on this debut.

Adam's rating: 7/10 

KK'S PRIEST - THE SINNER RIDES AGAIN          2023          (Napalm Records)

- Standouts: 'Sons of the Sentinel', 'Strike of the Viper', 'Reap the Whirlwind', 'One More Shot at Glory', 'Hymn 66', 'Pledge Your Souls'

Judas Priest's brand new album, Invincible Shield, is kicking my ass right now. I love it. And then I suddenly remembered KK Downing returned with The Sinner Rides Again less than a year ago. I didn't buy this album right away - I bought it towards the end of 2023 and gave it a few spins. And yeah, I like it. It's really good in fact. But it's no Invincible Shield!! That said, The Sinner Rides Again is a substantial improvement over 2021's somewhat underwhelming Sermons of the Sinner. In fact, everything has improved across the board here.

Checklist:

Riffs? Better.

Solos? Better.

Hooks? Better.

Production? Better.

Musicianship? Better, probably.

Vocals? Better, and Tim 'Ripper' Owens was the best thing about the last album anyway.

The first 3 tracks on this record are excellent - 'Sons of the Sentinel', 'Strike of the Viper' and 'Reap the Whirlwind' are all fast, triumphant and blazing forces to be reckoned with; KK shreds his way through these numbers, bringing non-stop high energy riffage and some outstanding soloing throughout them. And Tim Owens once again is in his element here. He's an underrated vocalist anyhow, and despite the fact he will always be compared to Rob Halford due to his tenure in Judas Priest, I think the only album he's really tried to imitate Rob to the point where the comparisons were blatant was on Jugulator. Since then he's done his own thing - yes, he's influenced by Halford and he'd be the first to admit it, but Tim Owens sounds like Tim Owens regardless of whether or not he was influenced by Rob as a singer. And once again he's great.

'One More Shot at Glory' is excellent too. Maybe my favourite song on the album. Despite the obvious lyrical nod to Priest's 'One Shot at Glory', the galloping mid-section to this number actually seems to remind me more of Iron Maiden than it does Priest - and I don't mean that in any negative sense of word. This tune has it all though - slower, mid-tempo arrangements, fast parts and just an epic, grandiose atmosphere to top it off. 'Hymn 66' is weaker than any previous track, but still very enjoyable in it's own right. Again, I actually get Maiden vibes, only this time from all the "whoooah!" vocal melodies. Think Dickinson more so than Halford. Riffs-wise, this one is a bit more plodding and chuggy, but still fun. I also like 'Pledge Your Souls' a lot - it reminds me a lot of 'Dissident Aggressor' (discounting the modern production of course, and the more intricate guitar solos), and is ironically closer to '70s Priest than many actual Priest songs have been post-'70s. Not that there's anything wrong with Priest post-'70s; look how many 'bangers they've made since, but it's always nice to be reminded of their early stuff from time to time.

The title track is actually one of the weaker tracks on the album. KK's solos are still awesome on it, but some of Tim's vocal choices are kind of odd and unfitting at times next to the rest of the song - not bad, but there's a slight whiff of modern metal in them at times here. And the song as a whole, while completely listenable, is kind of inconsistent with parts I like and others that ain't so hot. I suppose you could call 'Keeper of the Graves' a ballad - and when it does eventually get going, it's powerful stuff. But the intro is long and tedious and takes up nearly 2 minutes of it's 5 minute and 40 second run time. It's like it just didn't need the intro in the first place. 'Wash Away Your Sins' is kinda guilty of the same thing - once it gets going it's a fine slab of epic heavy metal... but the introduction is silly and takes up more than 2 minutes of the song. Whatever.

Yeah, the album's not perfect; there's no downright poor songs on this record, but the second half as a whole is weaker than the first. Still, there's a lot to like about The Sinner Rides Again. The production is infinitely better than the predecessor's and does the music far more justice, and it's nice to see that despite KK's long absence from music, he can still write kick-ass traditional metal by himself (well, with the aid of Tim Owens at least). And one thing that really does help in this album's favour is it's 40 minute playtime. It's far more compact and streamlined than Sermons of the Sinner, and despite a couple of the songs' intros going on too long, the album as a whole is not tiresome or overlong at all.

I really wanted to give this album an 8/10, but it's not quite there with me. Maybe in the future it will be, but I just don't find myself wanting to revisit this record enough to really consider it 'great'. I've listened to it a fair bit since winter 2023 and I always enjoy it - but it's one of those 50% awesome/50% decent kind of discs for me. The first 4 tracks are 9/10s, the remainder of the tracks are like 7/10s overall. Still, a 7.9/10 is actually a lot better than the 7/10 I gave Sermons of the Sinner. I'd argue that The Sinner Rides Again is even stronger than Priest's Redeemer of Souls... that's a win. And it's definitely a rock-solid effort from one of metal's legends. It's just too bad that deep down I wish he was back with the Priest for whatever years we have left of them.

Adam's rating: 7.9/10

INVINCIBLE SHIELD          2024          (Sony Music)

- Standouts: 'Panic Attack', 'The Serpent and the King', 'Invincible Shield', 'Devil in Disguise', 'Gates of Hell', 'Crown of Horns', 'As God Is My Witness', 'Sons of Thunder', 'Giants in the Sky'

2024 and the Priest is back with new album Invincible Shield. When this thing was first announced October 2023, I didn't hold any niggling negativities towards it. I had a good feeling that the album would be at least as good as Redeemer of Souls... but if they wanted to top Firepower, they'd have to really work hard on this record and craft some insanely powerful slabs of heavy metal. I've always felt strongly about Firepower - I loved it when it first dropped in 2018, and I've grown to love it even more as the years pass by. But guess what? I've now listened to Invincible Shield maybe 5 or 6 times and I can honestly say that this might be the stronger album of the 2. Seriously, it's insane just how good this record is. They released 4 singles prior to it's launch - 2 of which I thought were awesome from the get-go ('Panic Attack' and 'The Serpent and the King'), a decent ballad that I wasn't that terribly excited about to begin with ('Crown of Horns'), and a solid mid-tempo cut that might just be the weakest track on the album ('Trial by Fire').

Anyhow, I pre-ordered the album and received it a day early before it's official launch (8th March). Like I said, I was excited and very confident the album would be a good 'un, but only 2 of those singles really 'wowed' me... when I stuck the CD in the car on the way to and back from work on the 7th March however, it baffled me why they picked 'Crown of Horns' and 'Trial by Fire' as 2 of the 4 singles. The majority of this record is far, far stronger than either of those cuts which were decent to begin with anyway.

The first 3 tracks are blistering, prime slices of Judas Priest heavy metal that displays exactly why they're still the kings of the genre they helped define. 'Panic Attack' serves as the opener, and while the weird synthy intro still isn't quite to my tastes, as soon as this song gets going you know you're in for a hell of a ride. It's a fast, swift slab of classic speed metal - comparable to the song 'Firepower', only better. And honestly, 'The Serpent and the King' might be even better. They've written a fair share of Painkiller-era style tracks in the last 20 years, but this one to me legitimately sounds like it could've come from that seminal album. Not in terms of the production of course - this is Andy Sneap doing his thing, but he really handles Priest so goddamn well in 2024 that this might be the best-sounding album they've ever made from a technical standpoint, even if it isn't quite necessarily my favourite Priest record production-wise. Still, this song rules - Richie Faulkner's riffs and solos, are fast and hard, Scott Travis' double-kicking drums are all over the place and Rob Halford is doing that Painkiller-esque high-pitched shrieking schtick he does at such an impressive level... IN HIS EARLY '70s!! He sounds as good here as he did in his '30s... I guess his secret is sobriety. The title track is fucking brilliant too. Yet again, it's another speedy heavy metal monster with some absolutely epic vocal arrangements and riffs from start to finish... those 6 minutes and 21 seconds are always over before I know it as I just get lost in the total metal madness of this song.

The album finally slows down for the first time with 'Devil in Disguise'. Mid-tempo though it may be, this is how to successfully compose a rock-solid and memorable mid-tempo heavy metal song. The riffs stick in your head and will have you banging your head immediately, while the chorus has the power to have you singing along. Same goes for 'Gates of Hell' - this track doesn't quite qualify as 'speed metal', but for sure it's definitely melodic metal brilliance. Many of Rob's vocal arrangements give me more commercial '80s Priest, Screaming for Vengeance-era vibes (think 'Bloodstone') in that there's a slight pop sensibility about the hooks. The music is melodic heavy metal, but there's a lot of catchiness to be found in the vocals, and I love it. And even if I wasn't all that impressed by 'Crown of Horns' when it first appeared in January, it's really a much better song when mixed in with the rest of the album. Being a ballad, it perfectly breaks up the pacing of the record and it's chorus is one of the most memorable of the entire album. It's not one of the band's greatest ballads, but it's dramatic and deserved of it's place on this record.

Priest's brand of speed metal returns with 'As God Is My Witness'. Some of Faulkner's riffs on this one sort of remind me of 'Hard as Iron' from Ram It Down (probably the best song from that record), and once again the whole song just screams 'quality heavy metal'. The chorus manages to be catchy and epic at the same time, and the music itself is blazing with some outstanding shredding solos. 'Sons of Thunder' is a short and sweet ditty at under 3 minutes, but the riffs are massive and the song itself slots in very nicely within the record. Album closer 'Giants in the Sky' is a fantastically heavy, epic, sometimes even proggy way to end things on. Either way, it's Priest just doing their thing and doing it in style. I love it. 

Any complaints I have are minor. My 2 least favourite tracks are 'Trial by Fire' and 'Escape from Reality', but even these are really good and better than most of the songs on an album like Redeemer of Souls. 'Trial by Fire' is a bit generic by mid-tempo Judas Priest standards, but there's really not much wrong with it either. It's not like I ever skip it when it comes on. As for 'Escape from Reality', this one just feels slightly rushed next to anything else... the riffs are somewhat basic and plodding by comparison, and not in a British Steel/Point of Entry kind of way either. The chorus is kinda modern-sounding... but calling this number 'weak' isn't fair either. It's still highly listenable and even enjoyable overall. 

The other issues I have don't even really affect the listening experience and as a result won't actually affect my scoring - but I still want to address them. Firstly, the album cover art is disappointing and there's no denying that. Priest have a wonky history of album covers - some are legendary and absolutely seminal to this day (Sad Wings of Destiny, British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance, Defenders of the Faith, Painkiller... possibly even Firepower), others are kinda low effort or weird (Stained Class, Point of Entry), while some are just downright bad (Priest... Live!, Demolition). Invincible Shield on the other hand, is just... meh. It looks kinda AI-generated and even manages to remind of me of some of Sabaton's earlier album covers, more-so than it does Judas Priest. Whatever.

The other thing that is irrelevant to my overall score, but still worth talking about is the presentation of the album depending on which version you buy. I pre-ordered my copy back in January, and it came with the standard CD, cassette and a nice t-shirt. However, I swear I had no option to pre-order this bundle with the Deluxe edition CD! When my package arrived, I immediately opened the CD and it comes in one of those crappy, flimsy digipaks. Now, some digipaks I kinda like... this one is wafer thin however, and as a result is barely visible when sat in my collection. The booklet is small - the lyrics are there, but there's no band photo and unless your only a casual fan, do not buy the standard edition CD. The album's been out just 2 days as I write this review, and I already have 2 copies!! Yep, I bought the Deluxe CD from Amazon just a day later, which comes with 3 bonus songs and a far superior, book format digipak that is basically identical to the Redeemer of Souls Deluxe from 2014. If like me, you're a serious fan, this is the version to buy (if CD is your preferred format of course). I will say that I was more than happy with the shirt and cassette however.

Oh, and yes, I did just mention that the Deluxe CD comes with 3 bonus tracks ('Fight of Your Life', 'Vicious Circle' and 'The Lodger'). I won't talk about them in detail but I will say that they are all solid - they're weaker than anything from the actual album, but still worth hearing. 'The Lodger' even has a bit of a symphonic edge to it, something we haven't really heard since Nostradamus.

It feels weird giving this new record such a high score, to the point where it's in the same league as albums such as British Steel or Killing Machine... but I really have been enjoying Invincible Shield that much. I pretty much already know that this will be my album of 2024, and it's only March for crying out loud. Yes, Priest's management is terrible - their business decisions are questionable, but the music still freaking awesome. Andy Sneap is doing wonders with this band behind the scenes, Rob Halford is still and always will be the Metal God and Richie Faulkner is literally delivering the goods now that Glenn Tipton is pretty much out of action these days. I know Glenn is credited here, and I don't want to sound disrespectful but it's highly doubtful he even recorded a note on this record - hell, fans were sceptical as to whether or not he even played on Firepower, let alone a 2024 album. I'm 100% sure he had input within the creative process and making of Invincible Shield's songs, but his Parkinson's is really taking him at this point; considering he struggles to play even the most basic of Priest songs these days, I kinda automatically assume that all guitars are recorded by Faulkner now.

As sad as Tipton's illness is, the band are still the undisputed kings of metal, as this amazing album proves. I'd been spinning Saxon's latest, 2024's Hell, Fire and Damnation a lot until now... and as much as I love Saxon (and that album in fact), this Priest album sits even higher. It makes me so happy that Judas Priest - one of my all-time favourite bands - are still making music as good as this in 2024. Bring on March 19th... I'm seeing Priest again live, alongside Saxon and Uriah Heep at the Resorts World in Birmingham!!

Adam's rating: 9.2/10