- Country: UK
- Style: Heavy metal
- Label: Epic
- Release date: 9 March 2018
Nobody expected this. Eighteen studio albums in, with nothing left to prove, Judas Priest made their most fired-up record in decades, and a big part of the reason is sitting behind the desk. Tom Allom, the band’s producer through their classic run, is back for the first time since the eighties, with Andy Sneap co-producing and handling the modern muscle. The band also tracked much of it playing together in a room, and you can hear it: this sounds like a band, not a collection of overdubs.
The title track comes in at full tilt, with Scott Travis hammering away and Rob Halford hitting notes that a man his age has no business hitting. “Lightning Strike” is pure Priest, a riff and chorus combination that would have sat comfortably on Screaming for Vengeance, while “Evil Never Dies” and “Necromancer” bring the darker, chuggier side. Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton trade leads like it’s 1982 again, and Ian Hill is, as ever, the steady heartbeat underneath.
At fourteen tracks and nearly an hour it is a touch long, and a couple of mid-album songs like “Flame Thrower” play it safe. But then “Rising from Ruins”, introduced by the short “Guardians”, turns into one of the most majestic things they’ve written this century, and closer “Sea of Red” ends the album on a slow, haunting note.
A late-career triumph, and the best Priest album since Painkiller for plenty of fans. Ours too.
Best tracks:
Firepower
Lightning Strike
Evil Never Dies
Rising from Ruins
Sea of Red
Author’s rating: 8.8/10
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