JUDAS PRIEST - INVINCIBLE SHIELD

yes this is getting a thread.

about to throw this on for the first time.

everyone add your commentary here.

if'n u don't like Priest, the Foghat thread is that-a way.

Gotta wait til' this weekend to check it out, but excited to read your thoughts Neando. \m/

“Priest ! Priest is the best”….” Heavy Metal Parking Lot chants appear in my head …

my only gripe so far (prior to listening) is that the album title sounds like antivirus software

"Panic Attack" is such an incredible opener. A post-Perturbator reimagining of Turbo.

here we go!

1) Panic Attack - this one I've already heard from when it dropped pre-album release, and already love. the intro is, as you say, a beautiful revisit of Turbo-era atmosphere. the verse is as intense as they've gone post-Nostradamus. the lyrics are pretty hilarious though. THE INTERNET IS BAD AND ADDICTING.

Oh, I don't listen to Priest lyrics anymore. I said on Twitter yesterday, "Rob Halford is a smart, witty guy (I've interviewed him twice) and a native English speaker, so why are so many Judas Priest songs streams of jabbering non sequitur nonsense?"

2) The Serpent and the King - deliberately skipped this one when it dropped pre-release as I wanted to wait for the album. very weird to hear a song where Rob spends almost the entire song in his shrieketto, he hasn't done that in years. man, this is balls out aggro, almost "Screaming for Vengeance" (track, not album) style. the guitar solos have been positively insane on both tracks so far, like when I listen to the boring crap K.K. is churning out for his vanity Priest reminiscence project and the leads Faulkner is churning out....why would Priest want him back?

oh hell yeah, what an incredible (albeit short) bridge. I could see people getting hit in the face during this song live btw.

3) Invincible Shield - they're very much staying in high octane mode. I'm hoping this is the 1-2-3 punch and that after this, they change gears to more mid-tempo, melodic tracks. the pre-chorus HOLY SHIT, reminiscent of "Sinner" in terms of the build and the harmonies (not that it SOUNDS like it, mind).

bridge is very triumphant and leads into an incredible instrumental break with dual guitar interplay that breaks it out of face-punch mode. like Faulker/Tipton at this point have REALLY gotten perfect chemistry, whereas on Redeemer, you could hear neither was sure of each other yet.

lord, this has been an instrumental break lasting several minutes with a lot of twists and turns, as if it's Michael Denner and Hank Shermann on a Mercyful Fate track.

(don't let that last quip sound like a complaint. this has been an exciting start to a Judas Priest album in ANY decade, let alone when they're pensioner age

4) Devil in Disguise - as expected, they've finally slowed it down. poppy verse melody, very earwormy. this reminds me of "Evil Never Dies" from Firepower a little, it's simple and is doing its job, and is a needed sorbet at this point. Rob sounds about as good as he did on Firepower.

probably the best melodic guitar solo from the entire album thus far just dropped. not sure if it was Glen or Richie, but damn.

5) Gates of Hell - this is the type of track I was waiting for, something a bit more hooky, melodic and fist-pumpy ("HEY! HEY!"). this is the most infectious track so far, with a huuuuuuuuge chorus. the whole thing is so well-assembled. the melodies are some of the strongest I've heard them do in years. this is sorta like a "Rock Hard, Ride Free" track where you just sing along full-throat to the song.

6) Crown of Horns - had already heard this one coming in. This one seems to have polarized fans ("oh it's too poppy!"). fuck that. it's perfect and well-placed. we've now had three face melters, a sorbet, and two more mid-tempo anthemic tunes, and that is exactly the right choice.

i suspect people dog on this one because they think it's too close to AOR Priest, but it's great AOR Priest, and the album needs balance. So far, six songs in, I haven't disliked a single one ("Devil in Disguise" has probably been the most middling of them, but it served a purpose)

(I'm terrible with adjectives and there's a reason I'm not a music writer, please tolerate my awful prose, i'm excite)

7) As God As My Witness - there has been no shortage of melodic arpeggiated guitar riffs that begin songs, like how do they keep churning them out and how are they so good. alright, so we're back to rocking. but one thing this album is doing that Firepower occasionally struggled with is bringing actual choruses. almost every era of Priest had great choruses, and on Firepower, sometimes the choruses were more atmospheric and memorable but it worked so I didn't complain too much. but these choruses are almost all hummable and exciting. sometimes they re-use ideas too often melodically these days and that problem is still here on occasion, but....

when he sings "As God as my witness, I swear there'll be Hell to pay", I really believe him. chills.

i know this sounds like I'm on JP street team, but by now I'd already complained about at least two tracks on Firepower (and that was a top ten album of year for me).

*more atmospheric THAN memorable

8) Trial By Fire - already heard this one, the last of the ones I've previously heard. so I will admit, this one is good, but it feels a little 'by numbers' for modern Priest, and it actually didn't get me all that pumped for the new album like the other pre-releases did. reusing a lot of melodic motifs they'd used on Firepower. I'm glad to hear it here in the middle of the album, because this song isn't strong enough to anchor an album, but it's good enough as a second half kickstarter.

THERE, i finally gave a criticism, happy?!!

Are you listening to the standard edition or the deluxe? There's a deluxe edition with 14 tracks, which honestly is 3 or maybe 4 too many.

9) Escape from Reality - ok...the opening guitar riff is shockingly terrible. feels almost groove metal. lol. I hope this goes somewhere far better than this. even the bass is throbbing like a groove song.

verse melody is forgettable. this is the first outright dud. it sounds like it was written in five minutes.

xpost deluxe, though I haven't gotten to those extra tracks yet

LMAO there's a Bob Haligan-penned track in the bonuses? that should be interesting

10) Sons of Thunder - please don't plod. please don't plod. kind of a non-descript, bland opening. we can't lose steam now, partner!

ok, it's settled into something far better. Rob's performance is carrying this thing. it's filler, but it's above-average filler. and it's fun. it's one where Faulkner/Tipton don't do anything particularly interesting, but they give Rob a good canvas to work with. these last two tracks have been the first time I've felt "oooook, wheels are spinning a little", but I suspect they're building to a big finish for "Giants in the Sky". which I"m hoping is a cover of the Sondheim song from the musical "Into the Woods".

11) Giants in the Sky - nope, not "Into the Woods". well, they've broken with the trend of ending the album with a ballad like on their last two albums. this is a mid-tempo fist pumper. Rob's pushing his mid-range a bit during the chorus.

gotta admit, this doesn't *feel* like an album closer...yet. it's a very good song but it feels like something from the middle. let's see where it goes.

I just noticed that Rob did a Stereogum interview this week. It's really good. I want to read both his books now, but especially the second one.

he's flipping well between chest and head voice #nerd. this one's def not filler, I am vibing with this. just confused on the placement.

ok, this has a nice clean classical guitar interlude, with a clean bridge with a triumphant melody. now we're cookin'.

his mid-range is sounding closer to where it was on Resurrection, it's kind of incredible how he got that sound back. on Redeemer of Souls, that part of his voice seemed gone.

yeah, this is a head-scratcher for a closer, but it's a good song, and ultimately time will tell but...this might be better than Firepower. MIGHT. wow. i'm excite. K.K.'s Priest should retire immediately.

i read both books. Confess is by far the more interesting one, as it gets into his personality, his living in the closest, and some of the pain he endured for years, as well as being frank about his relationship with the band members.

second one is good but feels like a victory lap.

12) Fight of Your Life - bonus track #1. this has a bluesy guitar riff. chorus hook is extremely catchy. feel like this one should have made the 'official' cut over "Escape from Reality"

*in the closet

13) Vicious Circle - this one's more a traditional bonus track in that it's 'oh hey, cool, i get another track, this is kinda cute'. whereas "Fight of Your Life" was good enough to be on the album proper. nice instrumental break but tbh the song that precedes it isn't interesting enough to earn it. but once again...bonus track! who cares

14) The Lodger - lol, this is pure pop cheese Bob Haligan, Jr. I am here for this. it's gonna be more "Take These Chains" than "Some Heads are Gonna Roll". these's orchestrations! lmao....

this is glorious cheese. and it's a song about getting revenge on a killer.

this shoulda been on the album, this is so left field compared to the rest and so delightful.

VENGEANCE IS MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE

ok, my final rating is 300, on a scale of 1-10

Yeah, this album is so good. There's not a single song on here that I actively dislike — just a couple that are weaker than others. I think this will be in heavy rotation for me for a while.

i'm supposed to see them twice this year at two diff festivals. excited to hear this new material live.

ffs Glen Tipton is 76, Rob and Ian are 72, fuck the ageism, they're still making music like this.

Good reader interview in the Guardian with Rob Halford, now even more curious to hear the tracks they did with SAW. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/07/judas-priest-rob-halford-coming-out-as-gay-its-unbelievable-the-elation

Yes it's criminal they have been kept under lock and key other than snippets. I want the full version of "You are Everything"

Neanderthal & Unperson!…I may listen to this at some point; presently I am listening to Fear of the Dark, having only known the famous songs therein…

1. How pro tooled does this record sound to you?

2. In general, do you feel like the band still has Glenn at full strength as a player and composer in terms of recording? If he wasn't really contributing, to me this would be the Rob halford Experience plus Ian… do you think they should have KK back? I know that there's bad bllod between him and Glenn, but is there a problem with Rob? Again, it's his band to run…

1 is a question probably best suited for someone else, as I'm notoriously bad at telling things like that. in this day and age, I feel like every metal album is meticulously edited, but that lower budget ones probably don't go so overboard a la Metallica in artificially locking the rhythm section together and repairing gaffes. Halford's voice is of course treated more than it was decades ago, but it's fairly accurate of a representation of how he sounds now.

2, well, compositionally speaking? it's hard to tell. Priest even in their prime attributed most of their tracks to Tipton/Downing/Halford, and rarely made clear whom added what. though they did say he brought in two songs almost fully written: "Escape from Reality" (the one I disliked most), as well as "Sons of Thunder", which is good. I'm sure though that he contributed a ton across the album simply because I hear his style frequently, even if he perhaps had to dictate some of it to the group. but I wouldn't be surprised if Faulkner took on a larger role.

playing wise? no. he only played on four tracks on the album. He has to shift things to different frets. when he's brought out to play encores, he clearly takes breaks and lets the other two fill in.

but honestly, no, I don't want K.K. back in the band. K.K. can still play, but man, judging by K.K.'s Priest, he can't write worth a damn anymore. a lot of it sounds eerily similar to the things I disliked the most about Angel of Retribution and Nostradamus - and frankly, Glenn can't stand him and admitting him back into the band would end Glenn's involvement forever, and probably his friendship with the guys. I haven't taken any sides on the matter - I'm still reading K.K.'s book. but I think that move would only be a placating move for authenticity-hounds who insist it's not Priest without either of the two.

I liken this to the Voivod situation. Piggy died in 2005. he was essentially deemed irreplaceable. the band continued on, and initially, seemed like it might be true, but then Chewy emerged as the ultimate Piggy student. he's not Piggy, he can't 'replace' Piggy, but he plays in a style so well-suited to the band, that he's probably the worthiest successor anybody could have found. I feel the same with Faulkner. he's not K.K. Downing (he's not Tipton, either). but his playing is so remarkable, his writing is of such a quality that he was probably the best and only worthy successor, and as such, the legendary guitar duo of Tipton/Downing should be considered a trio, considering how well Faulkner has acquitted himself.

when it comes to authenticity, tbh, for me it's more about vibe than actual facts. the group masquerading as Foreigner, for instance, doesn't feel like Foreigner, and it never has. why? I think for most people, Foreigner is inextricably linked with Lou Gramm's vocals. It doesn't matter that the songs themselves were primarily written by Mick Jones, who up until recently, was still a consistent member of the band. It didn't feel like them because, as good as he acquits himself on the songs (and it's quite good), Kelly Hansen doesn't perform the songs in a way that feels like Foreigner.

Suffucation, meanwhile, despite having only one original member left (Terrence Hobbs, guitar), does. this is largely because live, they still acquit themselves extremely well and sound like them, and their last two albums very much sound like Suffocation, due to the personality. it does feel a little off having a vocalist other than Frank on record like on their last one, yes, but if it feels diluted it still tastes close enough.

Priest to me still feel like the real deal because a) Rob is still going strong, b) Scott Travis is now their longest tenured drummer by quite a long shot, and c) Faulker seems like an heir apparent to Downing/Tipton to where the same spirit is living on. it's not factually the same....but it works.

same thing, weirdly, with Queensryche. no Geoff Tate! no Chris DeGarmo! only Michael Wilton and Eddie Jackson are originals. Todd La Torre doesn't sing like Geoff, though he sings very well, and probably better than Geoff does at the moment.

and yet it feels ok calling it Queensryche to me simply because I hate Geoff Tate and think he's an abusive, egotistical asshole, and that he can't sing anymore, and Todd can, and....as much as that sounds like a copout, it's enough for me.

1. How pro tooled does this record sound to you?

I mean, it's Judas Priest, their records have been super slick since at least Screaming For Vengeance if not earlier. Honestly, "Pro Tools" just means "was this recorded in a modern studio using modern technology" and, yeah. Are the drums obviously programmed (or at least triggered with super artificial sounding plug-ins) on most tracks? Yes, but that's what Judas Priest sound like. The most obviously polished stuff, to me, is the layers and layers of vocals, but again, we're talking about a band that traffics in over-the-top theatricality and selling the fuck out of everything.

2. In general, do you feel like the band still has Glenn at full strength as a player and composer in terms of recording? If he wasn't really contributing, to me this would be the Rob halford Experience plus Ian… do you think they should have KK back? I know that there's bad bllod between him and Glenn, but is there a problem with Rob? Again, it's his band to run…

I agree with Neanderthal on this. Glenn's participation is less than it once was, but he's still writing and playing, and anyway, Judas Priest songs sound very different from Halford songs. This is 100% a Judas Priest album; everybody involved understood the assignment and delivered.

after about ten listens, this is not only better than Firepower (no small feat), it's pretty close to their pre-reunion output.

call me hyperbolic but this is gonna be a candidate for #1 this year

kinda surprised to see they pulled out "Screaming for Vengeance" at the tour opener. poor Rob must hate his lungs

Really enjoyed being the stereotypical suburban geezer wandering Target in search of their fabled "music section." After a few fruitless circles I just sort of stood staring at nothing, turned around and like a horror movie sting there was a single copy of the digibook at eye level wedged into a phone booth sized display rack of records.

Felt very nostalgic to get into my car, unwrap a CD, and stick it into the player. Album sounds huge, not as mechanical as Firepower (which I loved anyway), seems like there's more "atmospherics" happening on this one, especially with vocal tracks, and like Neanderthal mentioned there are very cool callbacks to sounds from prior albums -- that pre-chorus bit in the title track really jumped out at me, too (and obviously the "Turbo Attack" but that was the only track I'd heard before tonight). I think I may end up liking Invincible more than Firepower, even if there's no "Rising from Ruins" or "No Surrender." Way too early for favorites, though.

It has been said approximately a thousand times already but yes once again I am just agog at how ridiculous good Halford sounds.

Also Halligan wrote "Twist" on Halford's first solo album; I love that song even if a) it can be sort of awkward sounding in the chorus, ("Twi-ist, twi-ist, twi-ist") and b) everyone else seems to hate it.

Halford sounds fantastic, and part of me is thinking "yeah but technology is so good nowadays, what do I expect"... but then I think of the last 3/4 Ozzy records and how obviously robotic the vocals sound on those...

anyway i am very very hyped for the London show next week. quick glance at setlist and it looks fantastic, i see "You Don't Have to Be Old to Be Wise" was on setlist but wasn't played ARGH

On big over-the-ear headphones at home this is absolutely world-destroying, and then I listened to it in the car the other day and it was a totally different kind of RULES. Agree with Neanderthal; this is gonna make my year-end list without question. I can't make a one-to-one comparison to Firepower, but I feel like now I need to go back and revisit Redeemer of Souls...

it's funny, I remember loving Redeemer of Souls when it came out, partially due to my initially lowered expectations, but I've tried listening to it twice recently and man, I just don't dig it that much anymore.

Songwriting wise, it's all over the place, and it's clear Faulkner hadn't had enough time to gel w/ the band yet, but also, Rob's performance is just so-so, his range is extremely limited and he is very one note. something happened in the next four years because he regained a significant amount of his upper chest voice, which allowed him more freedom. I don't know if he could have pulled off "No Surrender" during Redeemer.

not bad by any means, but very much wasn't expecting something as good as Firepower to follow it.

Invincible Shield feels next-level. The songs are top to bottom great, Richie is all over it, and has become so good at capturing what makes Judas Priest tick. Rob, meanwhile, sounds incredible, in total command. There are a couple moments that remind me of Stained Class, too.

Sound wise, it's Priest, so it's on the loud side, but at this point it sounds quaint compared to the ear-murdrering production coming from the mainstream metalcore/death core bands that are exploding right now.

I should try to update my Stereogum Priest album rankings with this one. It'd be higher than Firepower. I've played the new album repeatedly and every time it ends I'm going, "already?" Time flies because it's that much fun to listen to.

It's so refreshing to hear a heavy metal album where as a non-musician I'm not able to anticipate most of what happens during the run of play, like the chord progressions, the harmonies, the way drums come back in over a lone riffing guitar. This is such a good blend of familiar and unexpected.

I love the bonus tracks. they're definitely their own thing and stand alone well. but "The Lodger" is my fav because it's left field as hell (well, Bob Haligan Jr wrote it so....)