Crucible

Rob Halford came back revitalized at the very right time, the dawn of a new millennium which showed willingness to embrace the old school canons with passion to spare, and what better leader of this new exciting campaign than the Metal God himself?

Only that the Metal God threw quite a stain on his reputation with the experimental non-sense Two; a terrible exit from metal that not every metalhead out there was ready to forgive… the presence of the bass player Ray Riendeau from that same project in the line-up here may cause some hiccups, but thank (metal) god remnants of this seriously miscalculated stint were nowhere to be found on the appropriately-titled “Resurrection” which shot Halford back to classic metal stardom the drum guru Bobby Jarzombek (Fates Warning, Spastic Ink., Painmuseum, etc.) and the talented axeman Metal Mike Chlasciak (also Painmuseum, Metal Mike) only too happy to join him for this new enterprise which carried on on full-throttle on the album reviewed here.

I have to admit that while I did like this “Resurrection” I wasn’t exactly salivating over it as it sounded like too overt an apology with Halford trying to please every single Judas Priest fan by providing a compendium of cuts that echoed quite a few of his main act’s endeavours; a mixture that was perhaps to be expected under the circumstances, but one that lacked personality somewhat, and one that criminally ignored the Fight period which was an important chapter from 90’s metal lore.

Well, it turns out that the Fight spell has been spared for the opus here as the shadow of both albums from that period loom heavily over it, the debut more prominently, of course, although cuts like the bursting “Betrayal” try hard to impose the classic speed metal flair of “Painkiller”. No, this is not the case here with the title-track early setting the dark brooding tone that dominates the proceedings, a pleasant hesitation between the modern and the classic school with a more subdued, more introspective Halford behind the mike (think his performance on “A Small Deadly Space”, above all). The more belligerent thrashy swagger of “War of Words” is adequately covered (“Hearts Of Darkness”, “Rock The World Forever”, “Heretic”), but it’s the doomy morose flair (“Golgotha”, “Fugitive”) and the deeply atmospheric balladic/semi-baladic (“Trail of Tears”, “She”, “Crystal”) escapades that give the album a character of its own, a creepy, patiently-woven veneer which settles in slowly but surely with vigorous fast-paced retro obstructions like “Handing Out Bullets” and “Wrath Of God” inevitably killing some pain along the way in those who expected this to be another tribute to all things Judas.

No, it’s not, and this is where its charm lies; Halford was bound to wink at the 90’s during which he was quite active for a while; pretending this chapter of his career never existed was going to make him look more like a hypocrite and a perennially flawed artist than a resurrected metal icon. If you want to start with a clean slate, you have to address all previous issues to put it this way. In fact, there are hardly any issues with this album as the guys (the exactly same line-up from “Resurrection”) move on assuredly without drastically betraying the classic sound of the first instalment, but first and foremost making sure all the Halford fanbase is kept in the vicinity excluding the handful of fans who may have enjoyed the Two charade. As such this effort is more convincing than the first one, seeing the Metal God smoothing out all the chips on his shoulder, looking confidently into the future…

which came with snow-white Christmas knocking on the door; only that said Christmas was quite late to grace the Halford family, arriving after seven long years. Not such a sad story, as you all know too well, since the man was quite busy with the Judas reformation, filling himself with metal to the brim, to the point that nothing else, save for a wholesome collection of Christmas carols, was going to wash away the severe metallic layer covering him from top to bottom. It’s debatable how many new fans Halford recruited for his cause with this white covers/originals compendium, but it was hardly the most miscalculated decision on the scene ever, keeping the element of surprise in the Halford camp regardless of how infrequent the releases from there were going to be with the Judas career firing on all fours again.

Well, at least “Made of Metal” came out just a year later and contained fulsome belligerent metal carols that were quite reminiscent of those from “Resurrection”, a pretty enjoyable fare that had not that many surprises in stall this time, but at least it entertained the audience in the familiar old school manner. A string of compilations and live stints has been keeping the flame burning for the past few years while Halford has been focusing on Judas almost exclusively. In other words, the Metal God is alive and well whichever camp he chooses to dabble with; metal crosses have been seen erected all around the world, but only as tokens of celebration of this artist’s work, mind you… there’s no crucifixion scheduled in the near future; not in this, not in any other lifetime.