I will be the first to say that I was never a Judas Priest fan. I respect their music, their style, and their talent (the last one being monsterous), but they weren't my thing. Most bands in the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal flew under my radar until my late teens, and even early twenties. The only exceptions were Iron Maiden and Diamond Head to a limited extent. I didn't even own my first Motorhead CD until my first year of college, and that's if you want ot include them in NWOBHM.As of my writing this Angel Of Retribution is still the only Priest album I own, and the only reason I picked it up in the first place was because of how hard my daughter was digging on the music for the video of Revolution. It was the big comeback video, and my kid (nine at the time) was all singing along with the chorus as if she had been a Judas Priest fan since British Steel. That may seem like an odd reason to pick up an album, but it worked for me.
The truth of the matter is that this album sounded like Judas Priest had spent the few years prior dining on a large diet of Type O Negative, and other various heavy down tuned guitars. It's a sound that just totally blows my mind.
The album opens with a mild shred fading in, then it has this nice slow noted electric guitar playing over top which doubles, while fading in the whole time. Then there's a faint noise that starts rising in the background using the same pattern. Then it all stops except for the background noise for only a moment. The drums come thundering in with the rest of the instruments roaring and that background noise turns into Rob Halford's wail. The song is Judas Rising, and this is Metal. Oh! My! God! This is Metal! This is the Metal I always dreamed of. It's Heaven And Hell if they had come out in 2004, instead of being Black Sabbath with Dio 1980.
All the songs on this album were written and arranged by Tipton, Halford, and Downing, or basically the guitarists and vocalist. The only exception is Deal With The Devil, which includes Ramirez. However, this isn't a member of the band. That's Marilyn Manson's one time bassist. The song itself is decent.
After that comes the song that brought me to the album. Revolution is hard, heavy, simple, blistering, and there's a reason Rob Halford is one of the greatest vocalists alive. He's not the type of guy to go running around the stage, but his voice commands the audience in ways that makes my heart pound. When you hit the 2:30 marker and the repeating riff kicks in, just so he can repeat "Here comes the revolution" quietly, you know all hell is going to break loose. Then when it does, I can't help but crank the hell out of this beast.
Worth Fighting For is one of those tracks that is very typically early 90's Hard Rock/Heavy Metal. It reminds me a lot of the production on the AC/DC Razor's Edge album, specifically the digitally remastered version. However, the song itself is kind of typical filler. I'm a fan of the song, but it's a bit typical. "Desert heat can wear you down / But still I'm rollin' through / Did I see your figure in the haze? / I am driven by a thirst to quench myself of love / The sun beats on me for the price I've paid / So I wander on / Asking where you might have gone / From what I knew before / Some things are worth fighting for / Yeah!"
So, I decided to quickly check who produced this album, because in all honesty it's the production that really helps make this album. If it sounded like British Steel, I probably never would have picked it up. But, I've already described how the album sounds, and when I see the producer I see it's someone I'm already a fan of, Roy Z. This was Bruce Dickinson's guitarist and producer for at least his last two solo albums, Accident Of Birth and Chemical Wedding. Both of which are amazing albums. That brings me to Demonizer. This your typical, blistering fast, ultra shredding, chestbeating case of testosterone. In other words "it's fucking awesome!" A little standard for Priest, but awesome all the same.
Wheels Of Fire is pretty stripped down lyrically, but it's because this is one of those bad ass driving songs. I personally picture Ghost Rider cruising through the desert at night, for his own personal enjoyment, but it's just my vision. I could easily see a semi roaring down the highway, or a hot rodded American muscle car. It's just that type of song.
Angel is rather pretty, and is pretty much the ballad of the album. Normally I would bitch about a song like this, but this is not that type of song. It's not a panty wetter, it's a person seeking solace from a dark place. "Angel, / Put sad wings around me now / Protect me from this world of sin / So that we can rise again / Oh angel, / We can find our way somehow / Escaping from the world we're in / To a place where we began / And I know we'll find / A better place and piece of mind / Just tell me that it's all you want / For you and me / Angel won't you set me free / Angel, / Remember how we chased the sun / Then reaching for the stars at night / As our lives had just begun / When I close my eyes / I hear your velvet wings and cry / I'm waiting here with open arms / Oh can't you see / Angel shine your light on me / Angel we'll meet once more I'll pray / When all my sins are washed away / Hold me inside your wings and stay / Angel take me far away / Put your sad wings around me now / Angel take me far away / Put sad wings around me now / So that we can rise again / Put sad wings around me now / Angel take me far away / Put sad wings around me now / So that we can rise again".
Now, I'll be totally honest Hellrider is pretty much Judas Rising, Revolution and Demonizer all rolled up into one song, and holy shit does it work. Not only should one bang their heads to this beast, but they should hold the evil eye up high. The evil eye is what the devil horns originally were, for anyone that may be confused. This is also the last song on the album to have the heart pounding speed that only Metal can give you. There is no way you can drive the speed limit and listen to this song. This was designed for crazy shit like the autobahn, and this goes on for almost six and half minutes.
Now it's the point in the album where things get fun. The album slows right down again, to ballad speed again, but instead of another pretty song, we get a scary little story. The lyrics of Eulogy, "And so now it comes to pass / By the eventide on mass / See them gather yet alas / They remain still as stained glass / For they know only too well / That the story they will tell / Conjures up an ageless spell / Guarded by the sentinel / So it goes forevermore / Ever steady to the core / That the sign that they came for / Waves majestic from the floor", are delivered with this amazing haunting music, that's simple and as scary as a clown in a sewer, talking about floating ballons.
Then it's on to epicness for the conclusion of this bad boy of an album. Lochness is about the big beast in the water. Don't take my words for it, the first two verses set up the story well. "Grey mist drifts upon the water / The mirrored surface moves / Awakened of this presence / Dispelling legends proof / A beastly head of onyx / With eyes set coals of fire / It's leathered hide / Glides glistening / Ascends the heathered briar". Now there are two major sounds to this song. The first is a super dark and heavy beast of a song. It sounds like a plesiosaurs thrashing about with monsterous weight. The other sound in this song is one of rising fanstasy. During the section of "Lochness confess your terror of the deep / Lochness distress / Malingers what you keep / Lochness protects monstrosity / Lochness confess to me", it sounds almost like the Choir of Angels were calling the beast up. It's like some type of great bi-polar duality in the music, and it makes the 13:30 that this song clocks in at move along with little notice.
This is the type of album that you are so happy to have discovered because it just really brings you back to what a great album should be. Sure there's filler on this album, but that filler kicks ass. This album contains the classic formula and tools used to make the greatest classic Hard Rock / Heavy Metal albums, and modernized it into a new breed of classic music.
8/10 - content
8/10 - production
10/10 - personal bias
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