Judas Priest – Invincible Shield

Back in 2018 when British legends released Firepower it seemed as if the album might be their final. With K. K. Downing out of the band and Glenn Tipton not being part of the band’s live line-up and in general a band with almost half a century behind them, it did seem like the end might be near. But here we are some six years later, and Judas Priest is ready with another album. Entitled Invincible Shield it’s their nineteenth album to date.

In the time between the two albums, we’ve been through pandemic, the band embarked on a 50^th anniversary tour which was postpended by Richie Faulkner heart surgery, and they even tried to strip down Priest’s two guitarist approach down to one. For a band for whom two guitars are such a cornerstone of their sound, it was a such a dumb idea. Especially when none of the two guitarists in the live band these days are ones that have been in the band for a long time. The fans revolted so massively that the plan to sack the band’s live guitarist and producer Andy Sneap were then sacked.

And speaking of Sneap heaving him onboard as a producer, it’s given that the sound on the album is very much Sneap-sounding. That means that it’s very clean sounding and balanced, much like the sound on Firepower and a bunch of other albums helmed by him.

So sonically there is no big news here, the album is much like its predecessor, surgically executed with each instrument coming across clear and balanced. The overall sonic inspiration can be traced back to Chris Tsangarides’ production on 1990 album Painkiller and, just like Firestorm, the new album is also musically heavily inspired by Painkiller. Not only when it comes to the overall approach, but also with several rather direct references to their 1990 masterpiece.

“As God Is My Witness”, “Trail By Fire” and “Crown of Horns” have a classic Judas Priest quality to them with just about all of Priest boxes checked, and especially the first two will serve as strong live songs. “Gates of Hell” revisits the band’s more melodic era eminently, and as such it’s one of the highlights of the album. Virtually the whole song is accompanied by outstanding guitar leads. There is that intro solo and then solo which accompanies all choruses, solo which accompanies the bridge and then there is the long solo section itself. The entire thing is basically a textbook example of Heavy Metal guitar soloing.

Elsewhere, “Sons of Thunder”, title track and “Devil in Disguise” are professionally delivered space fillers. The tree bonus tracks on the deluxe edition are just fine, but don’t offer all that much, and as such kind of live up to the idea of being bonus tracks.

Lyrically the band uses that classic imagery, and on their nineteenth album titles like “Trail by Fire”, “Gates of Hell” and “Crown of Horns” come across as tacky. But perhaps that’s one of the reasons why they are referred to as Metal Gods. Lack of imagination or horizon broadening of lyrical themes might be tiring, but they are also one of band’s trademarks and underneath it all songs do deal with some relevant subjects.

The album is eminently executed with striking guitar work, tight groove and Rob Halford’s vocals at the age of 72 are rather vital. Accompanied by production where everything is as it should be and what you get, it’s an album which delivers all that which Judas Priest fans want and which has become their trademark.
Going a more experimental way on 2008’s Nostradamus underlined that experimenting is not really what majority of band’s fans want as have some of their previous attempts on broadening their musical expression, so it’s only fair for them to lean back on the very Heavy Metal formula that they themselves pioneered and which continues to inspire hordes of Heavy Metal bands.

Taking all of the above into the consideration, Priest has once again managed to deliver the goods on an album that is far from their finest work, but at the same time an album that is simply a sonic representation of that Heavy Metal patch vest. No, not one of those new pre-made ones that you can buy anywhere, but rather those original old ones that have been there for ages and over the years have been marked by time, yet somehow, come across as slicker. This is Heavy Metal.

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