(Rated this album with 6 out of 10) Reviewed by
metal_dazed
from Chicago, IL, USA
Ok, Rob's out of the band and the Priests have gathered dust for 7 long years without a studio release after Painkiller. Rob had decided to explore techno-industrial music, so begging him to get back in the band could have been of no use. So, ENTER TIM "RIPPER" OWENS. Ripper sounds painfully like Halford, but the music is nothing like Judas Priest has ever done before. It is their heaviest work till date. The guitars are more reminiscent of Pantera, than the Priest's earlier works. There are almost no leads or very few solos in the songs, which is quite good as Priest's solos are very infamous for over playing. Ripper tries his best to fill Halford's shoes, but then, you cannot ignore the looming fact that the great man is no longer in the band, much like listening to Blaze Bayley on "The X Factor" or "Virtual XI". It's just hard to accept him as a part of the band. The songs are not too bad. "Burn in Hell", "Blood Stained", "Bullet Train", "Cathedral Spires" and the title track are heavy and quite hummable tracks. The rest is just heavy and heavier without good lyrics. In fact the whole cd has pretty bad lyics compared to previous Judas Priest releases. You cannot compare lines like "You mesmerize slowly, You put me in a trance" from A touch of evil in Painkiller to "Your head, you will lose it, severed, when executed" from Decapitate. They are worlds apart, the latter almost coming close to lyrics more common to Cannibal Corpse. Despite its shortcomings, one must not forget that this release qualified for a Grammy, which means a lot for the metal scene. This is a Metal record, true and sincere, but maybe not quite a Priest classic, considering the gap of silence of 7 years. One does expect that the results were better.
