"Resurrection"
Sanctuary Records
By Vinnie Apicella If the name weren't enough to give it away, how bout the site of Mr. Halford, clad in leather and shades, poised righteously back on the Harley he so fittingly featured during his days fronting Priest… but wait there's more! The foreboding introduction of "Resurrection"-eerie in almost a "Night Crawler" sense where you just know any moment there's going to be a torrential downpour unleashed on all the banging heads who've waited many long years for this moment to arrive-and arrive it does, in a big and bad way! Admittedly getting away from the despondent look of Heavy Metal music for a time, this is Rob Halford's return to his metal roots-a long awaited and welcome return to exactly where he needs to be and the album absolutely smokes. The "Metal God" has in effect taken the best moments of classic Priest and willfully revved much of it up to where he and his former band were at way back around the "Defenders of the Faith" and "Painkiller" era! Where does "Turbo" fit in there, considering it did exist nearly the same time? Absolutely nowhere! And there's no left over samples, loops or dance beats from Rob's ill-advised tampering with NIN music! Production talents go to none other than Roy Z, earlier known for bringing the beast back out in Bruce Dickinson's solo work, while Halford's assembled a cast of virtually unknown talent to not only reinvent himself but reinterpret the true nature that once was Judas Priest-"Locked and Loaded," "Nightfall," which is one of the best songs he's come up with in years, and one of the real blazer's of the bunch, "The One You Love to Hate" which features a searing vocal tradeoff between he and Mr. Dickinson-nothing more really needs be said of this other than it's pure brilliance… a metal massacre that should fly right off the hard radio charts! The guitar riffs get low down and dirty reminiscent of Halford's work with Fight several years ago and so from the modern sense, it shreds! "Cyber World" tears a page right off the "Painkiller" album as it warns of the impending tragedy of human consumption in the modern age… We can go on and on here but the truth is we don't have to. You already know this blows away anything he's done in years-yes, this could very well be like the next logical progression to where he and Priest left off back in 1990-"Resurrection," many have used it, many have written of it, but never has it meant more to an artist or the fans than it does right now! |
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