Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Judas Priest
Label: Epic Records
Release: 2018
Running time: 58:25
Rating: 4.5/5
This review should have run on RockLine ages ago. Sometimes you take your time, just long enough for the initial hype to wear off, so it’s easier to weigh the real quality of a record, especially when you have to measure it against a huge discography like Judas Priest’s. I’m talking about personal hype here, of course, since Judas Priest have always been the number one metal favorite of this article’s author. »Firepower« has been officially out for a month and three weeks now, and a new RockLine confession about the Birmingham pioneers of something that changed the musical face of the world forever is finally coming out into the open.
»Firepower«, then. Once again that annoying “why?” pops up, followed by the answer: “Because they can.” With musical grandpas like Judas Priest, who should be at home looking after the grandkids, there’s always that sinful suspicion they’re just “coasting” on past glory. In this case, Judas Priest are a happy exception, because »Firepower« is a genuinely good, in fact very, very high-quality new studio effort from this long-lived band.
It’s better than »Redeemer of Souls« (2014), which means that of all the albums released in the “post-Painkiller” era, recorded with Halford on vocals of course, it’s the band’s best studio achievement. I hope you’re still with me at this point. That last sentence is based on comparing just four studio albums with each other. The point is that Judas Priest don’t look back, and they deliver an album that is 100% Judas Priest and radiates everything Judas Priest are, in 2018 just as they always have been. That means the link to the energy of the pre-Painkiller era is still there. It just comes out differently. Totally unpretentious. The magic is everywhere, and so it is on »Firepower«. Judas Priest pulled this off with nothing but the genuine imprint of their musical charisma in new times, without a hint of flirting with the past, which could have come across as pathetic and undermined their own credibility. So they delivered exactly what their fans demand of them: musical timelessness, which is the essence of this kind of artistry. They’ve delivered a different album, which in its arrangement approach and energy sits closest to its predecessor »Redeemer of Souls« (logical enough), yet it’s also an album with its own musical record and character. The best thing for a fan of any band is that when you put the group’s new album in the player for the first time, it keeps reminding you of something. Something the band already created once, but you can’t pin down what it could be. The harder you look, the more lost you get. That’s what »Firepower« is like, carrying that unique musical magic forward along a natural evolutionary path. The kind you find in every era of the band, only with Judas Priest, and which settles into the released albums and shows up a little differently each time.
Halford handled his vocal role skillfully. They polished him up nicely in the studio and, where needed, brought out the color of his famous “screams”. He doesn’t overdo the high notes (the “Halfordisms”), and luckily the man was born with such natural vocal charisma that even at normal pitch he gives off that familiar, one-of-a-kind vocal tone, which deepens the band’s “darker occult” musical expression. Strictly “Halfordian”. And here’s the main engine and the “culprit” for why Judas Priest, in their old age, can still be bothered not just to play on stage but to write new music: the incredible Richie Faulkner. One of the main writers of the new material, who has gradually turned into the band’s main lead guitarist too. Given that the “offended” K.K. is retired and Tipton is battling Parkinson’s – meaning one of the most recognizable guitar tandems in the metal universe has been buried since 2011 – Faulkner’s drive, commitment, enthusiasm and fire are basically the fuel that keeps these legendary musical fossils with pioneering credentials alive, the same guys who were announcing permanent retirement as far back as 2011.
On the new Judas Priest album there are, “at a glance”, once again too many tracks, and too much playing time too, which comes in at just under an hour. And yet it’s surprising how hard it is this time to name any song a “time-waster” or “time-thief”. »Redeemer of Souls« wasn’t so immune to that, and it didn’t come with production as excellent as »Firepower« has, either. Andy Sneap is Andy Sneap. He squeezed the maximum out of the spirit and body of Judas Priest in 2018. Judas Priest have always had a great feel for high musical payoff in their compositions. Their songs usually consist not just of a verse and a chorus, but almost as a rule have a pre-chorus tacked on to ramp up the drama theater even more. At the same time, Judas Priest have always been masters of melodic modulation, which they achieved with superb mid-eight passages. They’ve also always known how to spice up a song with vivid intros. »Firepower« has all of that too.
The drama of all dramas comes from the excellent mid-tempo mini-epic suite Rising From the Ruins, which as a composition deserves nothing short of flawless praise. You could call it “Blood Red Skies” for 2018. What the overlong Lochness from the album »Angel of Retribution« (2005) failed to pull off, the fiery, solemn closing half-ballad anthem Sea of Red does with a full-blooded swing. A verse’s vocal melody in Flame Thrower pulls straight toward a verse’s vocal melody in the classic Hot For Love (»Turbo«, 1986). All in all, »Firepower« does seem to want to follow the »Painkiller« classic, but that feeling fades already in the first half of the album. The opening Firepower sets it up, the next one, Lightning Strikes, deepens it with its Hell Patrol-style rhythmic rolling, and then through the rest of the album that feeling slowly fizzles out. Even in the second half, with Spectre, Traitor’s Gate, No Surrender and/or Lonewolf following one another, Judas Priest don’t wander into an arrangement dead end. The run of twelve tracks brings tremendous variety in its lead motifs, and the guitar phrases are adorned with a hugely expressive character.
After almost 50 years in the game, you expect a band of this vintage to give you a good album, a decent album, maybe a solid one. Modest and respectful, in other words: no miracles required. But for an album to turn out as devilishly good as »Firepower« delivers a dose of sweet “shock therapy”. The beast stays bloodthirsty and the animal is waking up. It will snap its chains and go berserk this summer, when the legends stop by the Metaldays festival in Tolmin. It may well be that »Firepower« is the last Judas Priest album. It very well may. We can easily aim at that thought, but Judas Priest deserve great respect for this one. They didn’t betray themselves or their fans, and so proved they haven’t succumbed to the lazy comfort of living off royalties in the trenches of old glory. That’s the nasty, sneaky virus that has hit the crowd of their peers (right, David Gilmour and Roger Waters?), and bands twenty or more years younger too (right, Guns N’ Roses?). The legends deserve a big bow, then, and »Firepower« proves the tooth enamel is still dangerously sharp, the set of teeth totally complete, with no chips and no gaps, and that it’s quite possible that Judas Priwst, on the wings of the potent Faulkner, will extend their run for a few more springs yet.
Lineup
Rob Halford – vocals
Glenn Tipton – guitar
Richie Faulkner – guitar
Ian Hill – bass guitar
Scott Travis – drums
Production
Andy Sneap
Track list
01. Firepower
02. Lightning Strike
03. Evil Never Dies
04. Never The Heroes
05. Necromancer
06. Children of the Sun
07. Guardians
08. Rising From Ruins
09. Flame Thrower
10. Spectre
11. Traitors Gate
12. No Surrender
13. Lone Wolf
14. Sea Of Red
