Review Summary: Too bland, too generic, too lengthy, too unoriginal, too boring.
Priest’s first studio album with Owens was poorly received, and so was their first live album with him. Hoping to make it right with their fans, the band assembled new ideas for their new studio album, while mixing them with older ones referencing to classic Priest. Something for everyone, was the idea. Most will know it didn’t turn out too good for the band.
Demolition’s reception was even worse than
Jugulator’s, but would luckily (for both the band and their fans) be Priest’s last studio album with Owens.
Demolition’s Judas Priest was:
- Timothy S. Owens ~ Vocals
- Kenneth Downing Jr. ~ Lead Guitar
- Glenn Raymond Tipton ~ Lead Guitar
- Ian Frank Hill ~ Bass Guitar
- Scott Travis ~ Drums
The basis for the album lies in
Jugulator-esque thrash riffs, to which are added references to classic Priest (mostly in soloing) and, believe it or not, semi-rapping and industrial beats. This sure doesn’t sound very much like something Priest would do well, and that is also not the case.
Opener
Machine Man is actually quite promising, and shows that the boys do know how to do a thrash riff right. Like the rest of the album, it sounds rather angry, something Owens voice highly contributes to. Though the solo still sounds rather average, it is already far better than most heard on
Jugulator. Another great moment comes in the form of
Bloodsuckers, which, while being a bit of a standard thrash metal song, sounds fresh compared to the rest of the album. Owens employs his excellent falsetto here, something he does too little on the album.
I am afraid to say that was it for the good moments, which are far and far outshined by the bad. The majority of the album is bland, generic and uninspired thrash that really fails to go anywhere. Tracks such as
One on One and
Metal Messiah employ the mentioned semi-rapping, and that doesn’t really do them any good. The industrial beats are annoying and don’t really contribute to anything either. As a change of pace, the album also features two ballads,
Close to You and
Lost and Found, both of which are rather average in the way
Sin After Sin’s ballads were average.
In Between even has Priest sounding like Linkin Park, as illogical as it sounds.
A major problem is also the length of the album, as well as its separate tracks. Only
Jekyll and Hyde is under 4 minutes, but is pretty much boring thrashing with no real content all the way through, resulting in a filler track. The other songs lengths results in material failing to keep your attention after a few minutes. On top of that, the album has 13 songs, which creates a total listening time of 70 minutes. That wouldn’t be so bad if the material was all fantastic or great, but considering the amount of filler, Priest should have cut it down a whole bit.
As a last point: the lyrics, which are still as bad as they can get. Instead of explaining, rather it would be better to let them speak for themselves. Here is an example from
Cyberface:
Quote:
He lies in wait
For one mistake
Morphing on your screen
Those who dare
Or the unaware
Download him for a scream
Don't access the site
Or beware his megabyte
No virus scan
Detects the man
Or the deadly tasks he plans
Drooling lips
His circuits lit
He crouches for attack
Spider like on the web
Alive and well
But you are dead
Iniquitous in every way
Now he's come out to play
Cyberface
Iron will
Programmed to corrupt and kill
Cyberface
No escape
He is interfaced to Hell
|
That surely must give you an impression of Demolition’s quality. Even worse than its predecessor, Priest’s 14th studio album is flawed by genericness, unoriginal and bland song writing, length, and really bad lyrics as has been usual since the late 80’s. Even collectors will want to avoid this.
