After a four-year break, the new lineup of Judas Priest
\nfeaturing vocalist Tim “Ripper” Owens (who replaced the legendary
\nRob Halford) resurfaced on a major label in 2001 to release
\nDemolition<\/i>, the band’s 15th studio album.<\/p>\n
In a nutshell, this is not your father’s Judas Priest.
\nDemolition<\/i> is the sound of a veteran band trying to update
\ntheir sound by channelling both the bands that influenced them and
\nthe ones they themselves influenced.<\/p>\n
This experimental approach seems to manifest itself in a strange
\nmix of evil, mid-tempo sounding guitar riffs reminiscent of Black
\nSabbath, metronomic downtuned Rammstein-style headbanging riffs,
\nand many odd little guitar noise effects straight out of the Korn
\nand Marilyn Manson textbooks (unfortunately mostly at the expense
\nof traditional solos).<\/p>\n
Now if that description finds you recoiling in horror, I should
\nquickly add that the final result is not as bad as it might seem.
\nDemolition<\/i> is a powerful release with a surprising level of
\nlistenable consistency for a modern metal album by one of the
\ngenre’s pioneers. Judas Priest could have seriously embarrassed
\nthemselves by going in this direction and done their reputation
\nirreparable harm, but they come through virtually unscathed. It’s
\ncertainly far, far better than some of the unforgivable dreck they
\nreleased during their classic years, such as 1988’s disastrous
\nRam It Down<\/i>.<\/p>\n
My problems with the disc (there’s always something, isn’t
\nthere?) are twofold. 1) There are too many songs, and the songs
\nthemselves are way too long. Since most of them sound more or less
\nsimilar, there is no reason to include 13 songs. I was getting
\nbored in the second half. And of those 13, only two are less than
\nfive minutes long. The lack of editing is exhausting, to be frank.
\n2) Tim “Ripper” Owens. He’s a competent singer, I suppose, but
\nrather a generic-sounding metal “growler.” Add to that his annoying
\nchameleon tendencies — he seems to spend a lot of time imitating
\nother singers, mostly Jonathan Davis of Korn, but occasionally also
\nMarilyn Manson and even Ronnie James Dio. Rob Halford’s absence
\nreally hurts\u2026it just isn’t really Judas Priest without him,
\nno matter how hard they try.<\/p>\n
\nDemolition<\/i>, while no classic, is a much better effort than
\nanyone could expect from a late-period, non-Halford fronted version
\nof Judas Priest, and provides an interesting look at the band
\nduring an unpopular, experimental period. One can only wonder where
\nthey would have gone musically in the future had the classic lineup
\nnot reformed in 2003, ending Owens’ six-year stint with the
\nband.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":26990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5855],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38308","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-judas-priest","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38308"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}