You should _flow somewhere else.

^ It seems you fanboys will gulp whatever flows from your idol's mouth, so I'll just leave you to it.

"Womp womp" are those lyrics.

Good, leave more for us to gulp, and not just from the mouth. JAWBREAKEEEEEEEEER

Honestly, I'd wager that Rob's vocals have had quite a bit of studio trickery applied. But these days I put little stock in studio performances with all the pitch shifting, tempo adjustment, etc.

I should never have watched YouTube videos where producers and the like are discussing just how much shit is ran though a computer to "fix" in order to save money and studio time.

And as for lyrics....Judas Priest hasn't really had lyrics that had much meaning since the 70's. When it comes to Priest they are dead last in terms of importance to me so none of these bother me in the least.

You have a point. I would love for a vocal coach to react to Serpent & The King and tell us just how much autotune is there, cos the album's big selling point seems to be "OMG ROB STILL SOUNDS LIKE THAT AT 72?!"

Not to mention the fact that they haven't played that song live yet is also telling.



Can the mods change this weirdos name to "Sam Sneed" and make his signature be "you better recognize?" I'd take him slightly more seriously if they did.

I saw them live this week and they played Living After Midnight and Another Thing Coming. I never cared much for those songs, but the crowd seemed to love them a lot. I would've preferred a few more tracks off the new record instead. They did 'Love Bites' as well, which I didn't expect Really cool show overall, I thought. First time I've been able to see Priest live. Painkiller was awesome. So was Beyond the Realms of Death.

Yeah, Rob struggled to sing 'Painkiller' live 30 years ago...so it may be incredibly difficult to sing "Serpent & King" today.

Yeah, and I didn't make my comment as a slight on him. But I saw him live in 2000 and he struggled with some of the songs, and listening to live cuts of stuff like Painkiller or Resurrection and its a massive strain. I thought at one show he was going to shit himself he was hunched over and straining so hard. But the studio allows a lot more leeway and a few digital helpers. Hail to the Metal God in any event.

I imagine it did take a lot of work to get him to sound like that on this new album. He sounds younger than he did on any of the recent albums before Firepower... honestly don't see an issue so long as he was putting in real work. This time the difference is he has some really fun vocal lines to sing. Don't mind if he used some digital trickery to get things right really.

I think it's possible that taking a few years off touring due to COVID allowed Rob to rest his voice a bit and that's why he sounds better now. Not totally discounting some degree of studio wizardry as well.

It didn't really sound like there was anything egregious done in the studio, but eh I'm no expert on that. I think it's just a lot of hard vocal work that yes, may not be replicable live.

Yeah, when you can record in bits and parts with a lot of rest its easier than a 1.5 hour set.

Autotune is just pitch correction. It does not make someone a good singer. It's a replacement for spending three weeks recording vocals and then stitching together a thousand takes to get a perfect performance, nothing else. It is fundamentally misunderstanding autotune to think it can make him sound good- if he sounds good it's because he can still in a studio environment get good takes, which is not nearly as hard as being good live after a month of touring. If he blows these live that does not for a second mean he didn't sing well recording.

Most of the "trickery" seems to be coming from multi-tracked parts which would be difficult to replicate live, like in the chorus of that song. Also it's very likely comped together from multiple takes, which is a common practice.

Rob is still an amazing sounding live singer. The idea that he couldn't pull these off in the studio without "magic" is ridiculous.

Most experienced vocalists don't try to go absolutely nuts when they play live, because they have to tour for weeks or months on end and need to sound consistently good every night. Avoiding blowing their voices out by pushing too hard isn't a sign of declining talent, it's good technique that ensures they can keep performing longer.

Also, stitching together several of the best takes, using vocal layers and harmonies, and pitch correction have all been used in music production for the last 30+ years to make things sound bigger, better and save studio time. Priest was doing this stuff even in the 80s and 90s. You can of course take issue with the entire concept of albums being "too" polished, but it's not like this is a new thing.

(Spoiler, it's also done for all other instruments - metal drums in particular have been edited significantly as standard practice for the last 2 decades.)

I noticed there's less layering than on the last album. On Firepower whenever he did a part in the higher register it was always or almost always layered with him singing in his lower register too. On this album he does the higher range stuff on a bunch of the songs without layering it like that.

Every time I've seen him in the past 20 years or so or watching him live he sounded very shrill and strained when doing the sustained high songs. To the point where I'd rather he drop the songs like Painkiller or Resurrection and focus on the more mid range stuff where he was still doing a great job. Again no slam on him, he's got a ton of miles on those pipes and is not a young man. Maybe he has had a resurgence but the live videos of him at festivals in the past few years were about the same.

And you are right, almost everything over the past couple decades is stitched together and super polished. Probably part of the reason I still think most 70's and early 80's stuff sounded the best. Drums especially. Give me the drums on Stained Class over any recordings the Pedo or Travis has been on.

Seen him in 2009ish and he was amazing. Genuinely. Went there for Megadeth and Priest blew them out of the water.

I was already a fan, I just didn't expect them to be as good as they were. The live sound was also excellent, super punchy guitars, really tight and clean.

I think it was probably the best concert I've ever been to and I was so glad seeing Glenn and KK together on stage.

Also Halford in his sparkly cape was great. It was the tour for Nostradamus.

All Priest of all eras was incredibly stitched together, quantized as much as was possible with the technology of the time, layered vocals, every studio trick you can imagine. It's not like they just went into the studio and Venom'd it.

As clear as day - the metal god's
vocals are ay eye.
Evidence: a bonus track
(they cover Aces High).

I don't really care too much about how much every detail has actually been edited in the studio as long as it doesn't sound artificial. The production is certainly more organic than the one on Firepower, if you ask me.

The album is pretty damn great and might surpass Firepower overall even. I can't decide that after the short time I've spend with it, though.

It and Firepower are close but I'd give this the slight edge.

Still bolded at 3.72 right now (for comparison, Firepower is at 3.58). I was expecting its score to drop significantly once it hit the charts but it's still holding its own.

Two premieres at Dublin. I'll spoiler them because hey why not



and even more surprisingly



so seems anything is up for grabs now. Personally I'd like Demonizer. I'd be feeling a bit bummed if I'd seen them in Leeds as the Dublin setlist was a lot better.

That's a good idea (which I've just stolen for a 12-tracker):



I think "Crown of Horns" tends to disappear in a commercial haze when it follows the equally accessible "Gates of Hell"; it just has more weight near the ending. "The Lodger" has such a strong sense of finality – so why not use it as a closer on the A Side?



Done!

Not everything has to be one extreme or the other. There's absolutely pitch correction on his vocals on the album in places. It's audible. Not as much as some use, but it's there. I don't like it and I get it being a pet-peeve for anyone else as well, whether it's "standard practice" these days or not --and it's still really not standard practice in metal, other than some of the biggest selling bands.
Older tricks like vocal layering, editing together takes, lots of reverb to smooth over performances, etc have been ubiquitous since the 70s/80s but for obvious reasons that tends to strike people as way less "icky"/artificial. It doesn't sound weird like pitch correction does.

With that said, there's not enough studio tinkering to hide the fact he did churn out overall good stem performances on the album, and he does sound good for his age live as well (besides Painkiller, which now sometimes sounds like some sort of dodgy melodic death/black metal song live).

I saw them live 2022, 2018 and 2019. He sounded awesome.

My favorite live album is Halford's Live Insurrection and it'd be hard to believe there's not serious tinkering on that album. Especially when you compare to the sleepy live version of "Leather Rebel" on some Painkiller remasters that sounds like Rob is talking through it.

More spins and I think like the new Dickenson album it keeps growing on me. I'm probably up to an 80% rating now. I think its clearly better than Firepower at this point. Songs sticking a lot more than that one.

Gotta pick up the vinyl I think. 42 bucks though...

Damn, that makes sense, I'm stealing it.


Firepower is more consistent (I'd only drop the silly Flame Thrower and Spectre and keep everything else as is) but Invincible Shield's highs are higher.

I'm also of this opinion as well. However, one other thing Firepower has going for it over Invincible Shield is dynamics--aside from Crown of Horns there aren't really any softer/ballad type songs on the new album, whereas Firepower had Guardians/Rising from Ruins and Sea of Red. Rising from Ruins may be my favorite track off that album and definitely one of modern JP's highlights.

I love Flame Thrower.

Gave it another full listen yesterday and I think my final rating is a solid 75%. I do find that it drags at the end. Not the the songs drag...more that I'm just done with it, especially the deluxe edition. A definite buy as I'm a collector and its worth a buy. Just need to find a lower priced copy of the vinyl. I think my favorite cut is The Serpent and the King.

Solid 7/10 album to me. Strong songwriting, great performance by Halford, and they're obviously really playing to their strengths and doing what they know they do well. It's a little too polished for my taste, especially the guitar riffs are kinda forgetable. I also wish the guitars had more bite.
Like the other newer JP albums, I would probably just end up listening to older JP records instead of this.

This album is brilliant!
Absolutely love it and glad we are getting such a great album in 2024,40 yrs after my all time favorite of theirs!

Life's great!

Cheers to all you Heavy Duty Defenders OF The Faith out there in this internet world!

The Metallian

This is an "AI" cover.

Get this nonsense out of here.

Oh, silly me,
coz I don't get
the irony
in your two lines
of poetry.

This might actually be the front-runner for my AOTY so far. Holy shit.

Long way to go still, mind, but wow, this is really good.

Seriously? Why doesn't someone call it like it is - they won't kill you...
It's hardly just Painkiller he can't sing. He can't deliver any vocal line correctly or convincingly - he's just marking the vocal lines, relying on fans' memory. He's out of tune most of the time, and wherever he needs to be poigant, he croaks and yells. The fact he stares at the teleprompter instead of addressing the audience, can't help either.
I suppose it's good anything goes in rock and this isn't opera, but to say he can still sing in any measure is to be deaf.

As far as this new album, it's basically pop tunes. Sha-la-la. Still, he should be able to deliver those tracks convincingly. Here for example some jilted-lover lyrical hero is supposed to be crying about being whipped and abused, going through the circles of hell - but it sounds as if he's gasping for air amid snacks, while his parents make him perform for the dinner guests:

There are literally dozens of Priest bootlegs going back 40+ years where Rob sounds pitchy and doesn't hit every line perfectly either.

Maybe more importantly, are you doing okay?

John Steed is an internet troll that hates Judas Priest.
He's also on Facebook, Blabbermouth and r/judaspriest.
He's also very disrespectful with Glenn's disease.
Don't feed the troll.