https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RQIWS8SpyVY

Behold! Monster Energy Presents something absurdly over the top. Not since Udo/Raven’s cover of ‘Born to be Wild’ have I had such a vocal induced headache (although, I enjoyed that one). Incredibly dumb lyrics, too! What is Conklin doing wasting his time here? Work on the third Titan Force album instead, man!

Ripper. The absolute god-emperor of poor career choices. I mean dude started off in Winter's Bane which was a quality band with their shit together, then replaced GOD and did it well on "Jugulator" (fuck you haters), had episode in redneck metal stalwarts Iced Earth and it's been all down the fucking slope from there. Myriads of half-assed, one-album "projects" and endless tours over smallest pubs you can find to recycle JP material with a bunch of no-names.... This here sucks almost as bad as this garbage he rcorded with Blaze and Tate... And honestly? That makes me sad. Dude has the voice, the looks, the charisma, so what the fuck is wrong with putting together a real band and working hard on it?

Ed. The lyrics are so fucking stupid it is practically insulting...

Wow this is REALLY bad. Ripper is good but like it's been mentioned... he makes the worst career choices.

The lyrics are worse than a one man black metal band by a 14 year old. The lyrics leave me just speechless.

What TheHellstorm said. This man is a fucking vocal powerhouse who deserves a place among the great, yet he always seems to miss the right band and music to back him up. To be honest, I quite liked several songs from The Glorious Burdern, but the Something Wicked album was mostly wretched.

I don't mind this but boy could I not find any actual riffs/hooks beneath all the screaming on the first listen. I'll listen to the whole thing at least once when it's out but I'd sure prefer another Satan's Host album.

On the subject of Ripper, I enjoyed that sole Beyond Fear album and still do. Would be completely fine with that band giving it another go even if nothing more than to showcase his hometown talent, guitarist John Comprix in particular. Charred Walls of the Damned is alright for what it is, the second album clearly the best of the three. But yeah, he's better than this. All of them are.

Ripper fans really need to check out Brainicide. It's his 2nd best work after Winters Bane. Great band even without his vocals.

This project is horrible and stupid but will probably be successful. Singers are given far too much credit and this project panders to that perception.

There's no money in that. Easier to sing in a bunch of cover bands.

I wanted to defend this... but I can't. Sensory overload.

I'm cool with the idea, but the least they could do is give them a focused, coherent song to sing on top of. It's just some random collection of meandering riffs.

Oh god, what the fuck did I listen to? Everything just sounds off, like they wrote the lyrics and vocals first and then wrote the music around them. On top of that, the music and vocals sound like they're performing in completely different keys from one another, the vocals sound like they weren't properly mixed in with the music at all (they sound like they're resting on top of the music instead of as part of a proper mix), everyone's just shrieking as loud as they possibly can with no regard as to whether or not it fits the music, and the vocals even sound like they're very slightly out of sync with the music, making everything just sound totally out of whack.

This sucked in every possible way, but in a total trainwreck fashion as opposed to just being a really bad, unlistenable song. I can't wait to see how bad the album is.

Well, that was fucking hilarious, if nothing else.

What possessed them to do this?

Edit: I found this really, irrationally funny for some reason:

As a parody, it's brilliant. As an "in earnest" song.. ehhhhhh...

Certainly the most silly thing i've heard lately. Couldn't make it through the song. What the hell are you doing, guys? haha

The song just sucks in general, but special mention needs to be given to those first 30 seconds. Jesus Christ on a cracker, I've never heard vocals and instrumentation so out of sync and at odds with each other in my life, and I've indulged in those "[X song] but the vocals are 5 seconds behind!" videos.

Ok, gave it a few more spins and it sucks even worse.
Ripper is officially Nicholas Cage of heavy metal.

WOW... this is so bad is awesome. i genuinely don't understand a thing in the begining of the song.

And those goddamn lyrics. They rule. I wish all the songs deal with the alien invasion thing, so i can refer to this album as "retarded Agent Steel".

Im pretty sure i'll be listening to the whole thing in youtube for some cheap laughs. Its hurts a little bit that the man who sang on "Ample Destruction" is also here, but whatever, comedy is comedy (even if unintentional).

On the other hand, thanks to the guy who name-dropped Brainicide, that shit is cool.

I kinda liked the chorus, that riff is cool. Other than that, this is the most unnecessary use of vocalists ever. The Tyrant and Ripper have great natural voices as well as screams and it would make sense to actally use them instead of, you know, screaming throughout the song.

On a side note, Ripper should have joined Annihilator ages ago and stay there.

You're welcome. All Ripper fans should be familiar with them and we need to pressure him for a reissue of all that stuff.

I don't think Jeff can pay him or that his style of vocals would fit with most of that material.

Jeff Waters can't pay him but Cage can? I find that hard to believe... Also, judging by Ripper's choices it's not like he is being very eclectic with his choices.

I think he would suit Annihilator's material wonderfully, both Alice in Hell and Never, Neverland which are the two ends of the spectrum vocal-wise.

Jeff hires talented 20-ish no-names who live locally, and has taken over vocals himself. These are not the moves of a man with a lot of money to burn.

This isn't billed as "Cage", I bet this "Three Tremors" thing goes down well in Europe. It wouldn't surprise me much if this becomes a recurring thing for them. Keep in mind, this is basically another cover band. They will play maybe half of the stuff from the album and a bunch of covers from their respective bands. So it's not a "Cage" tour in the way it's billed or what will be played, even if the backing band is the same.



I guarantee they are all paying him though, except for that solo album that tanked.



I think the melodic stuff would sound great but the Rampage stuff not so much.

Sean Peck's vocals just don't work for me. Guy's got amazing range but his delivery never seems to accomodate the songs. Felt the exact same thing when listening to his work with Denner/Shermann.

XDD, im from Europe and that shit is not going to do well here, i think people will laugh at this. As a fan of Tyrant, others are good too, i cant understand that screaming. Some "metal" - project from Brasil did the same thing and i was wondering same thing. They should listen some Ronnie if they want to present vocals with power, im still laughing...

Yeah, not the best reactions from Greece either. There are a couple of scraming metal fans that see this positively (with a dose of humor too) but overall most people see this as a joke.

This isn't billed as Cage but it's basically Cage + 2 singers and I bet it was them who made it happen. Kinda lame if you think that the original three tremors were supposed to be Halford, Dickinson and Tate (or Dio if Bruce had his way).

I am sure Jeff Waters loves to cut corners and save money but I am also sure that he can afford Ripper.

All this talk of Ripper fronting Annihilator is just a front for our subconscious desire to have Joe Comeau back. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Also I'm still surprised they didn't get Ralf Scheepers involved in this considering how he's the "other" Halford-like guy. Did they just want an ultra Murican lineup for this?

It was people Sean Peck had already played shows with. I doubt that that was his strategy.

Yeah, but sometimes he was great in Cage. I used to sing his praises.

Like Ripper, he has the ability but the songs/melodies just aren't that inspired any more.

It was.



Even that would've been terrible I'm sure. Cookie cutter riffs courtesy of Roy Z.

I wonder if it would've been better if the vocalists were Harry Conklin, Todd LaTorre, and Stu Block.



I dunno. He didn't seem to even be able to hire Flo from Cryptopsy to play drums.

Hey, I like Roy Z's work with Dickinson and Halford!

He wasn't able to hire Flo or he did not want to hire Flo? I've never heard of this, do we have any details? Wow, Flo in Annihilator, that might have worked! I've always believed thar Ray Hartmann has been the best Annihilator drummer BY FAR and I've always missed his drumming, exactly like I miss Mikkey Dee from King Diamond.

Yeah, Roy Z did plenty of cool stuff with Dickinson. Shame Bruce seems like he’s not bothered about anything but lame Maiden albums and non-musical projects nowadays.

Another Ripper project that I had forgotten about: he is singing all the vocals on the new Tourniquet album. Live shows with him in that band are very unlikely IMHO.

I just occurred to me that this should be called "Pecker Owens".

he's all into that cancer shit now

I really wanted to like this as I'm a big fan of Ripper's and I'd love to see him succeed at long last, but... not this time, either.

You guys were not exaggerating when discussing the song's intro. Who the hell listened to that and thought "yeah, good enough for release"?

Honestly, Ripper needs to be hounding KK Downing to form some sort of "play Priest live" show. Get Les Binks on drums (he's still good friends with KK) and, say, whoever you want on guitar and, let's be honest, the bassist doesn't matter too much. Play the clubs, make the fans happy, play stuff that the other Priest doesn't touch so much... avoid the hits. It would be cool! This is basically the only sensible thing to do. Of course, KK has to want to as well, but he seems keen enough to get back into playing live.

Couldn't agree more.

Get Paul Gilbert on guitar. Mr. Big appears to be done.

I wouldn't be surprised if ripper comes back to judas priest when rob retires, so they can keep the corporation going. After all, who ever thought Andy snap of all people would replace Glenn tipton?

It sounds like they were recording the song during an actual alien invasion

I'd be into that. They ought to do it!

Les Binks is 67 though, that's really my only objection. If they got a young drummer, they can play any song from any era.