Anyway, today we start with the return of Judas Priest. Anyone with even a vague knowledge of heavy metal is bound to have heard of Judas Priest, but, for the benefit of those who haven't, I'll give you the basics. Judas Priest pretty much defined a lot of the stereotypes related to modern heavy metal: they pioneered the high falsetto scream prevalent in metal music, they pioneered the operatic singing style that a lot of power metal vocalists tend to use (although Rob's voice isn't exactly operatic in and of itself, it still showed that you could have a strong and clean voice in metal), they pioneered the wearing of black leather that most metal fans are known for wearing and you could fairly argue that, if you don't count Black Sabbath as a metal band because they remained strongly rooted in blues music, they were the first true metal band. Despite having a revolving group of drummers from their first album onwards, the band's core from the release of their first album onwards is very noticeable: vocalist Rob Halford (who isn't a founding member of the band: their original vocalist was Al Atkins), guitarist K K Downing (a founding member of the band who retired from the band in 2011 and, to my knowledge, has no intention to return to the band in the future), guitarist Glenn Tipton (who joined the band before the recording of their first album) and bassist Ian Hill (who is the only founding member of the band remaining as of 2014). The band had some difficult years after the release of 1990's Painkiller: Rob left the band in 1992 to form Fight and Judas Priest basically went on hiatus until they returned in 1996 with Tim "Ripper" Owens on vocals. Their two albums with him are...controversial, to say the least. A lot of people like them as albums, but feel that they aren't especially good Judas Priest albums. I gotta be honest, I'm with the fan dumb here: while both albums do have strong tracks, they just aren't good albums when you compare them with just about every other album Priest has done. I wouldn't say Owens deserves any blame for his time in the band, as he didn't write any of the material on the albums (unless you count a bonus track on Demolition) and, from what I've heard of him on a few live shows, he didn't do a bad job at filling Rob's shoes (which is a lot more impressive than you'd think: in his prime, Rob had an overall vocal range of nearly six octaves...or about double the range of a typical singer, if you aren't knowledgeable of vocal range details and whatnot). Anyway, Rob rejoined the band in 2003 and Owens left to go to Iced Earth, where he would be hated by Iced Earth's fans for replacing another well liked vocalist by Iced Earth fans...yeah, guy's not had a lot of luck when joining other bands, has he? Priest went on to release their comeback album in 2005, Angel Of Retribution, which was...OK. Bit too safe sounding overall, but that seems to happen with just about every reunion album that's ever been released anyway, so I can't complain too much. The band next went into the studio to record 2008's Nostradamus, which was a wonderful album...to cure insomnia with. Too many songs that didn't do anything distinctive and all done as a double album results in an album which requires a ridiculous amount of patience, coffee and determination to get through. That's not to say there weren't any good songs on the album (I particularly like how the album starts with "Dawn Of Creation" and "Prophecy" and I will say that the title track is very good), but it would be fair to say that it's an album which I don't consider to be worth picking up unless you're already an established Priest fan. Anyway, the band went on their Epitaph tour in 2011, which was basically their retirement from doing major tours in the future, and K K Downing retired from the band about a month and a half before the tour was due to start, but a replacement was found in the form of Richie Faulkner (who wasn't even born when Priest's first album came out, so make of that what you will). The band kept working on the album throughout 2013 and this is the first fruits of the band's labour.
And...it's a bit of a letdown, if I'm honest. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad song, but it just doesn't give me a reaction beyond "Eh, it's OK".
First of all, I have to comment about the production. It's fine on the volume level and Ian Hill has never really shined as a bassist, so my usual complaints don't spring to mind, but the song sounds...hollow is honestly the best word I can think of to describe it. It sounds like a low quality rip of the song, not the final version of it. It might just be youtube making it sound worse than it actually is, but it just leaves me going "Is that really going to be the final production on the album?" Only Rob sounds fine, and even he has his falsetto pushed back in the mix (although whether that's because it's just not very powerful any more or is a fault of the mixing isn't something I can confirm the accuracy of). It just means the song doesn't sound very powerful to me. I know this is going to sound rather hypocritical for me to say this after giving a lot of bands crap for loud mastering, but this could have done with the guitars being put more up front, the drums made a bit louder and made a bit louder with the mastering. I'll hold back from saying the production is unsalvageable, as youtube might have made this sound worse than it will on the actual album, but, as it stands at the minute, I'm not impressed on the production of the track.
Anyway, moving on to the track itself, it's a somewhat mid paced track. That's not really a bad thing, but, in this case, the song feels like it's wanting to go faster and the band aren't letting it get up to the speed it wants to go to. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't feel like it's a safe song in that they deliberately picked a dull song to release, but it just feels a bit too controlled on the speed front. They can afford to cut loose a bit more and go a bit quicker on it, if you get what I'm saying. I'm not asking for them to go to Painkiller levels of speed, but a little bit more speed might have helped give this one a bit more kick, if you ask me. Maybe paced more like "Deal With The Devil", this could have been a more impressive track. Anyway, the song does have a decent chorus, but I can't help thinking it's a bit underwritten. Not hugely so, but just enough for me to think that it could have done with a tiny bit more to it than what we got. Sonically, it sounds a little bit like it could have come from Screaming For Vengeance or Defenders Of The Faith, but with a sort of modernness to it that brings to mind Angel Of Retribution and maybe a tiny bit of Jugulator and Demolition (although the band didn't completely skimp out on writing an actually enjoyable song here, which is more than I can say for a lot of those two albums...). There's also a tiny bit of British Steel in terms of the composition of the track: it's not an especially complicated track in terms of the songwriting.
On a performance level, everyone does well. I will say that Rob sounds the best he has done on any Priest album since he returned to the band: it sounds like he's embraced his lower range more than he had done on Angel Of Retribution and doesn't try so much to reach for the part of his voice that he normally uses, which is a bit of a plus for me, as his upper range was starting to sound uncomfortable on Nostradamus. The other veteran members of the band put in the performances you'd expect from them: Scott Travis is a solid drummer who puts out a solid performance, Ian Hill is his usual nigh-unhearable self and Glenn does his usual brand of guitar work that shows an appreciation for writing songs which are heavy, but without the brand of pretentiousness that Nostradamus fell apart due to an abundance of. Richie Faulkner doesn't really try to do anything too different from what K K Downing probably would have done, to the extent that you'd be forgiven for not knowing that Downing had retired from the band if you hadn't been keeping up to date with band developments!
So, my thoughts? If you're a Priest fan, you really can't go wrong with this track, as it's still a solid track. Just don't expect this to be a highlight on your playlist of favourite stuff. If you've never heard of Priest before now...well, why haven't you, it's not like they're some cult band that nobody else has heard of! But, if you haven't heard of Priest before now, you'll probably find this somewhat enjoyable, but you probably won't get what all the fuss about them is. My advice to you? Get Screaming For Vengeance, dig deeper into their discography if you like that and, if you enjoy what you've heard while doing that, come back to this. If you're wanting recommendations for what to go for (as I said earlier, this is going to be their 17th album, so you'd be forgiven for being worried about where to start with them!) I personally would recommend going for Screaming For Vengeance, British Steel, Defenders Of The Faith and Painkiller (not necessarily in that order, but I'd genuinely recommend saving Painkiller for last if you're not already a metal fan: it's probably one of the heaviest metal albums you'll ever hear without having to go into extreme metal territory, so it's fair to say that it's not really an album you'll want to listen to if you've not got used to metal yet!), then follow them up with Angel Of Retribution so you can get an idea of what Rob sounds like today before you jump into this track. It might sound like a lot to listen to (that's coming up to three and a half hours worth of material to listen to) and will probably be daunting to listen to if you've never listened to Priest before now, but I would honestly say that it's worth it. True, you're glossing over another album of theirs which is highly respected (Sad Wings Of Destiny), but those five albums I mentioned earlier point more towards what the band were aiming for on this song. Plus, who knows, maybe you might want to dig into their other albums after you've heard them at their best...incidentally, if you do decide to do that and credit this article with encouraging you to do that, feel free to drop me a message and let me know!
Final Rating: 6 Out Of 10
A fairly enjoyable song that lets itself down with the production and not really doing enough to become an impressive track. Recommended from Priest fans and probably worth at least a listen for those who aren't familiar with Priest, although only with the understanding that this isn't Priest at their best. If you're don't like Judas Priest at all (as hard as I find that to believe is possible if you're already a metal fan...), this song will not change your mind in the slightest.
"Redeemer Of Souls" is available to download now. The full album will be released in the UK on the 15th of July.
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