Judas Priest - Redeemer Of Souls

Published July 28 2014

*=Staff's pick	Dragonaut Redeemer Of Souls Halls Of Valhalla Sword Of Damocles March Of The Damned Down In Flames* Hell & Back Cold Blooded* Metalizer* Crossfire Secrets Of The Dead Battle Cry* Beginning Of The End

Genre	Heavy Metal	Rob Halford	Vocals
Tracks	13	Glenn Tipton	Guitar
Running time	62 Min.	Richie Faulkner	Guitar
Label	Sony Music/Columbia	Ian Hill	Bass
Release	11 July 2014	Scott Travis	Drums
Country	England	-	Keyboard
Producer	Mike Exeter, Glenn Tipton
Similar artists	---

Judas Priest's seventeenth studio album, six years past the release of its predecessor Nostradamus, which concept with a lot of intermissions and intros wasn't particularly suitable for this band's catalogue. Naturally most metal fans wish that Judas Priest would hit it big-time again, similar to what was achieved in the past and I too would want to shout out that "The Priest is back!", but at the end of the day this fabricated romance ends up in the world of dreams.

What we instead get is an engine running more or less at idle. Ignited, yet not really fired up to create a blast. Even though a fair share of the record has its moments, it somehow feels a little too dark for its own good and focus is generally fixed too much on heavy stuff and compression. Certainly the classic riffing is present and so is the melodic atmosphere as well, but unfortunately the latter comes to light in way too few songs. Rob Halford's voice is, as everyone already knows at this point, just a shadow of what it once was, but it is what it is and what we have now is after all not a bad effort when comparing to many other heavy metal vocalists.

I like it when they are able to find melodies over a solid groove as in the track Down In Flames and when they build songs up with Halford's voice over a riff and a simple beat, like in Cold Blooded. Yet I would like to demand something additional by this band, considering the milestones once produced. Of course one shouldn't rate something in tunnel vision just because a band is well known, but it's also about what you can expect from such a great band.

This record lacks vivacity, curiosity and youthfulness overall, which on the other hand isn't that strange considering Judas Priest has released albums for almost forty years. It's nevertheless a rather good album, worth 6 chalices, but as you will figure out when you listen to it, something's not really there to push the album to the breaking point of a climax.

See also review of: Nostradamus , Angel Of Retribution

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	4	6	6	6

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Tobbe