- Country: United Kingdom
- Style: Heavy metal
- Label: Columbia / Epic
- Release date: 8 March 2024
Invincible Shield is Judas Priest’s nineteenth studio album and their first since Firepower in 2018. Andy Sneap, who also plays guitar with the band on tour, produced again, while Tom Allom, the man behind the desk for Priest’s classic run of the early eighties, co-produced the last two tracks.
The pandemic and the 50 Heavy Metal Years tour meant the album was recorded in pieces: Scott Travis and Richie Faulkner in Nashville, Rob Halford in Phoenix, Ian Hill in between tour dates in Europe. Glenn Tipton, no longer on the road because of Parkinson’s disease, wrote “Sons of Thunder” and “Escape from Reality” and plays solos on the record. Faulkner had promised songs that sometimes wander off the verse-chorus path the way seventies Priest used to, and the six-minute title track delivers on that.
The response was the band’s best in decades. The album entered the UK chart at number two, the highest position of Priest’s career, topped the charts in Germany, Sweden and Finland, and finished near the top of countless year-end lists. More than fifty years in, Halford still hits the notes. Nothing else needs saying.
Best tracks:
Panic Attack
The Serpent and the King
Invincible Shield
Crown of Horns
Author’s rating: 9.5/10
