Review Summary: The metal gods fail to capitalize on their solid comeback by releasing a bloated and cliched concept album.
Well, they’ve finally done it. No proprietors of fantasy-themed metal can go forever without putting out a concept album, and after 35+ years, Judas Priest have yielded to the temptation. Unfortunately, they run the gamut of Spinal Tap cliches and release the most trudging, boring album of their career.
The concept centers around the story of the famous Nostradamus. For those unfamiliar, Nostradamus was a 16th century Frenchman known for his visions of the future. These visions were passed to him by God in the form of vague metaphors that could only be deciphered after the event they possibly alluded to had already transpired. Now, depending on your IQ level, this is either “magic” or “stupid.” But whatever your view, one thing is for certain, it’s perfect for heavy metal (Stratovarius already made a concept album about old Nos a decade ago). As one might expect, the lyrics dealing with the life of a mystic probably aren’t exactly notable, and one can somewhat forgive their rampant cheesiness (the sole exception being the ballad "Lost Love", which is out of place and just plain terrible).
The music, however, is completely unforgivable. The boys make the fatal mistake of loading the album with short preludes before nearly every song. While brief intros
can be effective mood-setters, loading
every song with one just makes them cumbersome, especially given the unimpressive preludes on display. Some of them (i.e. "The Four Horsemen") actually kill the momentum of the previous song and have nothing to do with the next one.
Also an issue is the plodding nature of most of the songs. Priest, who usually purvey metal of the mid-tempo variety (and occasionally borderline thrash), choose to slow down to Sabbath-speed and the result is some truly boring numbers. They layer these tracks with generic keyboards and the same few string patterns that are supposed to make things “epic” but instead smack of repetition. The one example of a song that has all these features that actually works is
War. For a track that openly rips off Holst, it’s rather entertaining and the only one that truly feels epic (probably because they rip off Holst).
Now, it’s not all bad. Sprinkled among the pounding mediocrity and the idiotic preludes are some enjoyable tunes. "Conquest" features some of Halford’s better vocals, which are somewhat lacking on this release, plus it shows off K.K. and Glenn. It's not that great, but it's better than everything that precedes it. "Alone" has Rob’s best vocals on the album, making great use of layering that doesn’t push the higher register to the background like it so often does, while "Death" really lets the guitarists shine. However, the best tracks are puzzlingly at the end of each disc. "Persecutioin" and the title track show the band playing at their normal speed, to fantastic results, while the album closer "Future of Mankind" is a proper closing epic (which sadly means it must also have the token too-long fade out).
Ultimately, 5 fully good songs and 2 songs with good aspects cannot redeem a 23-track, 2-disc set.. Scott Travis, the powerhouse drummer who has proven both with this band and Racer X that he is one of the finest men behind the kit, has absolutely nothing to do here. Glenn and K.K. get a few moments in the spotlight to solo, but not enough and their riffs are completely unmemorable. Rob is the only member of the band who acquits himself well, but even so it’s obvious he blew out his voice in the last few years (he didn’t sound too hot on
Angel of Retribution either), but his lower voice still has a sinister edge to it. Expecting another
Painkiller would be naive, wishful thinking, and one must give kudos for the band for having the stones to try something new so late in the game, but that doesn’t give them a pass. The album is far too long, far too boring, and far too cliched to entertain all but the most die-hard of fans who would rather live in denial than admit that the gods are fallible.
