JUDAS PRIEST ALBUM RANKING GAME: #5 REVEALED

[Mosh]

No, not really. If you'd have done this on a Priest forum rather than a Maiden forum, the sentiments would most likely be fonder, same as if you'd do a Maiden album ranking game on a non-Maiden forum, a sizeable chunk of Maiden's album's would have either been divisive, or moderately ranked. There's little love for 90's Maiden anywhere else than on a Maiden forum, and the general sentiment is that the 80's albums are superior to reunion Maiden, while many go farther than than and think reunion Maiden is shit.

Well, i wasn’t really talking compared to Maiden, just in general as a band with a big discography. But I think the general metal fan community would rate the first seven Maiden albums as Metal essentials. I agree on the 90s, I think reunion is more of a mixed bag especially since there are six albums to choose from, but it seems to me like BNW, AMOLAD, and Book of Souls have all been pretty well received.

With Priest I think we can all agree that Sad Wings, Sin After Sin, Stained Class, maybe Killing Machine, British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance, Defenders, and Painkiller are metal essentials. But within the classic run you have Rocka Rolla, Turbo, Ram It Down, and Point of Entry, none of which are commonly held in high regard. The two Ripper albums are on similar ground as the Blaze albums, although I think it is significant that the Blaze albums continue to be reissued and songs appear on compilations/setlists still. I’ll grant that the last two Priest albums seem to get more widespread recognition than most reunion Maiden albums, but then you have Redeemer and Nostradamus which are polarizing at best, and Angel which is somewhere in the middle. So I would say Priest has more gaps.

Also I don’t think you’re giving people here enough credit. Yes it’s a Maiden forum but people submitting lists have taken the time to get the know the whole catalog and clearly enjoy Priest enough to tackle a large discography. So far this list seems pretty representative and I doubt you’re going to see people coming out to defend any of these albums in great numbers in any circle.

 

[Yax]

One of my points is that you'd find the same conclusion you came to with Priest about Maiden's discography if a Maiden game was run in a different population than die-hard Maidenfans, which says something about the validity of the claim that Priest's discography is that uneven. Because that also has to be seen from the perspective that we here think Maiden's discography is somewhere between rock solid and solid as titanium, while you certainly could label it uneven as well. Also, I don't think it's universally believed that Maiden's 7 first are classics. Killers was, in the Maiden ranking game anyway, touted as a filler album by many, and in the general public I've found that it's "the album between IM and NoTB". SiT is in a bit of a similar position as Turbo, seen as attempts at sell-outs and commercial appeal. I don't know how many times I've seen people comment that Iron Maiden stopped being metal with SiT and it's often, or at least was prior to the tour, sort of ignored other than AtG when non die-hards talk about Maiden.

So my point is that there needs to be more of a relativist perspective when drawing conclusions, and that's where I certainly can see that we have landed somewhere with the rankings. I think the list is turning into a ballpark Priest ranking, but that doesn't mean that the bottom stuff sucks. Drawing upon the example of, say PoE, I think that album is better than 95% of the records out there, but I ranked it as their 2nd worst (although I'd probably put Redeemer in its place, which is a quite good album that should have excessive songs trimmed and deserves a proper production). I think all of the Maiden and Priest (that being said, I take a relative approach to Rocka Rolla as well, as it's a blues rock album more than anything else) records are at the very least good, but almost all of them range from great to perfect. Almost all of us think all of Maiden's records are great, but the large majority of metal fans certainly don't (and a few of their records certainly won't be defended in great numbers in a different polling population than ours) , and since our love for Maiden is what has brought all of us to this place, it's to a certain degree, and especially in the sub-genre, the yardstick we measure other works by, Maiden also becomes relevant when making comparisons and rankings.

 

[Mosh]

One of my points is that you'd find the same conclusion you came to with Priest about Maiden's discography if a Maiden game was run in a different population than die-hard Maidenfans, which says something about the validity of the claim that Priest's discography is that uneven. Because that also has to be seen from the perspective that we here think Maiden's discography is somewhere between rock solid and solid as titanium, while you certainly could label it uneven as well.

I think one of the big differences between Priest and Maiden is consistency in style. There is a natural progression from one album to the next and you can group them in 3 or 4 different categories that correspond to when they were made (reunion albums all sound similar, the two synth era albums, the Blaze albums etc). Priest is more all over the place: one minute you have Defenders of the Faith, a (mostly) ripping metal album. Then you have Turbo which is a bit of a 180. Angel of Retribution to Nostradamus back to Redeemer is similar. Maiden never really took those stylistic u turns which leads me to think that even for casual fans their catalog is more consistent. At least you generally know what to expect.

Also, I don't think it's universally believed that Maiden's 7 first are classics. Killers was, in the Maiden ranking game anyway, touted as a filler album by many, and in the general public I've found that it's "the album between IM and NoTB". SiT is in a bit of a similar position as Turbo, seen as attempts at sell-outs and commercial appeal. I don't know how many times I've seen people comment that Iron Maiden stopped being metal with SiT and it's often, or at least was prior to the tour, sort of ignored other than AtG when non die-hards talk about Maiden.

I have never seen Killers seen as anything but a companion to the debut and an essential metal album anywhere besides this forum (and even here that’s a recent phenomenon). There are people out there who prefer both Di’Anno albums to the rest of the discography and for every person who doesn’t like Killers there’s somebody who thinks Adrian and Martin Birch elevated the band’s sound beyond the debut.

SiT is in a bit of a similar position as Turbo, seen as attempts at sell-outs and commercial appeal. I don't know how many times I've seen people comment that Iron Maiden stopped being metal with SiT and it's often, or at least was prior to the tour, sort of ignored other than AtG when non die-hards talk about Maiden.

Maybe, although SIT has always been the cult classic Maiden album. I don’t see Priest doing a Turbo themed tour as a way of fan service any time soon.

So my point is that there needs to be more of a relativist perspective when drawing conclusions, and that's where I certainly can see that we have landed somewhere with the rankings. I think the list is turning into a ballpark Priest ranking, but that doesn't mean that the bottom stuff sucks. Drawing upon the example of, say PoE, I think that album is better than 95% of the records out there, but I ranked it as their 2nd worst (although I'd probably put Redeemer in its place, which is a quite good album that should have excessive songs trimmed and deserves a proper production). I think all of the Maiden and Priest (that being said, I take a relative approach to Rocka Rolla as well, as it's a blues rock album more than anything else) records are at the very least good, but almost all of them range from great to perfect. Almost all of us think all of Maiden's records are great, but the large majority of metal fans certainly don't (and a few of their records certainly won't be defended in great numbers in a different polling population than ours) , and since our love for Maiden is what has brought all of us to this place, it's to a certain degree, and especially in the sub-genre, the yardstick we measure other works by, Maiden also becomes relevant when making comparisons and rankings.

So moving away from the Maiden comparisons for a second, because I don’t disagree with much of that, is there any community outside of a hardcore Judas Priest forum that would rate any of these bottom 6 albums very highly?

 

[Mosh]

I decided to go on Rate Your Music and see how the average ratings compare. Not the best source but it’s a bigger sample size than we have here and I can’t really think of any other ways to gauge general popularity of particular albums:

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/iron-maiden

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/judas-priest

A few takeaways:

1. The first 7 Maiden albums are indeed rated highly, all above 3.5. Killers is the lowest rated, but not by much (3.71 compared to the debut’s 3.82). The only other Maiden album to receive a higher score than 3.5 is Brave New World. Meanwhile, Priest have 10 albums scored higher than 3.5, although it’s early for Invincible Shield but notable that Firepower also scored in this range.

2. Turbo vs SIT, not even close. Turbo scores 3.02 while SIT is one of the highest rated Maiden albums at 3.91.

3. Judas Priest has the highest score of both bands (Painkiller at 4.03) but also the lowest score between both bands (Demolition at 2.28). All reunion era Maiden albums score above a 3 while Nostradamus is at 2.84.

So while Priest has more highly scored albums, they also have more lower scored albums. You also see that all of Maiden’s highest rated albums are clustered together while Priest’s are scattered throughout the catalog, which contributes to my “uneven” comment. Finally, none of the 6 albums that have ranked toward the bottom in this game have particularly high scores plus there are two albums we haven’t seen yet which received low scores on RYM. Again not a definitive source, but it does show that the Maidenfans opinion isn’t that far off from a general public opinion here.

I looked at MetalArchives as well but there were so few ratings for the albums (in the 20-30 range generally) that I didn’t think it was really worth digging into the numbers that much, although the average scores seemed to look similar.

 

[Forostar]

13. Jugulator.
14. Firepower.
15. Point of Entry
16. Redeemer of Souls
17. Angel of Retribution
18. Demolition


14. Firepower.
A very good sounding album. Priest sounds very driven on it. Focusing on the material, Rising from Ruins is the sole great, if not brilliant track. No Surrender also resonates a lot with me, especially the excellent chorus. I love the grabbing riffs in Lightning Strikes. But what's left? Sea of Red is noteworthy. Rather a-typical Priest perhaps. Not very exciting but a deeper song and I like how Tipton shows one of his last (albeit short) leads, starting around the 4th minute (not sure if I can recognize him on Priest's latest album: if it would come out he did not record a note, I'd believe that instantly). Lone Wolf, Flamethrower and Spectre are bad, especially Lone Wolf: forgettable songs, taking the album listening pleasure down.

When you have to deal with this material it's important to focus on the good. While I've really tried to emphasize the good moments, the higher rated albums' best moments are more impressive or more in number, or both.

13. Jugulator.
Well... I'll never forget how I immediately felt, after getting this, that this album lacked good melodies and especially their guitar solos seemed to have a different (worse) approach. But I was still intrigued. So much energy and aggression on this angry and intense sounding music. Heavy riffing, inspired by Pantera and Machine Head.

Priest does not have the same spark without Halford but I used to play this album a lot and I find the material special and more original than most later stuff. I also enjoyed '98 Live Meltdown. While the guitars sound a bit weak it's still fun. Man, Ripper especially rules on British Steel material.

 

[Mosh]

Seconding the recommendation for 98 Live Meltdown. Ripper does a lot of the old material justice and it’s a great Setlist (got a few Painkiller songs in addition to the better Jugulator songs). Makes me wonder if the band would have done better to tour a little bit before going in to make an album because they click in a way you don’t hear on record.

 

[Kalata]

No, not really. If you'd have done this on a Priest forum rather than a Maiden forum, the sentiments would most likely be fonder, same as if you'd do a Maiden album ranking game on a non-Maiden forum, a sizeable chunk of Maiden's album's would have either been divisive, or moderately ranked. There's little love for 90's Maiden anywhere else than on a Maiden forum, and the general sentiment is that the 80's albums are superior to reunion Maiden, while many go farther than than and think reunion Maiden is shit.

True.

Well, i wasn’t really talking compared to Maiden, just in general as a band with a big discography. But I think the general metal fan community would rate the first seven Maiden albums as Metal essentials. I agree on the 90s, I think reunion is more of a mixed bag especially since there are six albums to choose from, but it seems to me like BNW, AMOLAD, and Book of Souls have all been pretty well received.

With Priest I think we can all agree that Sad Wings, Sin After Sin, Stained Class, maybe Killing Machine, British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance, Defenders, and Painkiller are metal essentials. But within the classic run you have Rocka Rolla, Turbo, Ram It Down, and Point of Entry, none of which are commonly held in high regard. The two Ripper albums are on similar ground as the Blaze albums, although I think it is significant that the Blaze albums continue to be reissued and songs appear on compilations/setlists still. I’ll grant that the last two Priest albums seem to get more widespread recognition than most reunion Maiden albums, but then you have Redeemer and Nostradamus which are polarizing at best, and Angel which is somewhere in the middle. So I would say Priest has more gaps.

Also I don’t think you’re giving people here enough credit. Yes it’s a Maiden forum but people submitting lists have taken the time to get the know the whole catalog and clearly enjoy Priest enough to tackle a large discography. So far this list seems pretty representative and I doubt you’re going to see people coming out to defend any of these albums in great numbers in any circle.

A bit more true imo.

I think one of the big differences between Priest and Maiden is consistency in style.
I have never seen Killers seen as anything but a companion to the debut and an essential metal album anywhere besides this forum (and even here that’s a recent phenomenon). There are people out there who prefer both Di’Anno albums to the rest of the discography...
Maybe, although SIT has always been the cult classic Maiden album.
So moving away from the Maiden comparisons for a second, because I don’t disagree with much of that, is there any community outside of a hardcore Judas Priest forum that would rate any of these bottom 6 albums very highly?

This.

while you certainly could label it uneven as well.
So my point is that there needs to be more of a relativist perspective when drawing conclusions, and that's where I certainly can see that we have landed somewhere with the rankings. I think the list is turning into a ballpark Priest ranking, but that doesn't mean that the bottom stuff sucks. Drawing upon the example of, say PoE, I think that album is better than 95% of the records out there, but I ranked it as their 2nd worst (although I'd probably put Redeemer in its place, which is a quite good album that should have excessive songs trimmed and deserves a proper production). I think all of the Maiden and Priest (that being said, I take a relative approach to Rocka Rolla as well, as it's a blues rock album more than anything else) records are at the very least good, but almost all of them range from great to perfect. Almost all of us think all of Maiden's records are great, but the large majority of metal fans certainly don't (and a few of their records certainly won't be defended in great numbers in a different polling population than ours) , and since our love for Maiden is what has brought all of us to this place, it's to a certain degree, and especially in the sub-genre, the yardstick we measure other works by, Maiden also becomes relevant when making comparisons and rankings.

Both discographies are great, but Priest is more uneven.

I think the albums by both bands that usually don't have common opinion on the ranking are:

Priest - at least 2 of the 70's albums, POE, Turbo, RID, Jugulator, Demolition, Nostradamus, Redeemer and even Angel.
Maiden - NPFTD, FOTD, TXF, VXI, DOD, TFF and maybe 1 of Book or Senjutsu.

So far the Priest ranking is expected imo. There will always be at least one or two surprises in the ranking. Some opinions on albums can change over time.

 

[Yax]

I decided to go on Rate Your Music and see how the average ratings compare. Not the best source but it’s a bigger sample size than we have here and I can’t really think of any other ways to gauge general popularity of particular albums:

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/iron-maiden

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/judas-priest

A few takeaways:

1. The first 7 Maiden albums are indeed rated highly, all above 3.5. Killers is the lowest rated, but not by much (3.71 compared to the debut’s 3.82). The only other Maiden album to receive a higher score than 3.5 is Brave New World. Meanwhile, Priest have 10 albums scored higher than 3.5, although it’s early for Invincible Shield but notable that Firepower also scored in this range.

2. Turbo vs SIT, not even close. Turbo scores 3.02 while SIT is one of the highest rated Maiden albums at 3.91.

3. Judas Priest has the highest score of both bands (Painkiller at 4.03) but also the lowest score between both bands (Demolition at 2.28). All reunion era Maiden albums score above a 3 while Nostradamus is at 2.84.

So while Priest has more highly scored albums, they also have more lower scored albums. You also see that all of Maiden’s highest rated albums are clustered together while Priest’s are scattered throughout the catalog, which contributes to my “uneven” comment. Finally, none of the 6 albums that have ranked toward the bottom in this game have particularly high scores plus there are two albums we haven’t seen yet which received low scores on RYM. Again not a definitive source, but it does show that the Maidenfans opinion isn’t that far off from a general public opinion here.

I looked at MetalArchives as well but there were so few ratings for the albums (in the 20-30 range generally) that I didn’t think it was really worth digging into the numbers that much, although the average scores seemed to look similar.

Cool, interesting stats. A couple of takeaways here though: Two of Maiden's reunion albums barely make 3 (TFF makes 3,03, and Senjtusu 3.10), and while I do agree that these rankings give us a few pointers due to the larger poll population, it is also very clearly a relativist ranking site, due to that "real" fans are seemingly overrepresented (as they care enough to vote) rather than casual fans/listeners. If not, then Ratt, the lesser King Diamond, Blaze Bayley and Saxon works etcetera are really giving Maiden for example, a run for the money (and often beating them). Most albums I've seen hoover around 3/5.

And regarding PoE etc. If Jugulator was put forth under a different moniker, then yes, I'd bet it would be more positively viewed. I don't think that many Heavy Metal fans view PoE as a bad album, but a lesser Priest album. Had it been released by a different band, then it could very well have been that band's peak. Relativism.

 

[Yax]

So far the Priest ranking is expected imo. There will always be at least one or two surprises in the ranking. Some opinions on albums can change over time.

Yes, the ranking is expected, I agree with that.

 

[thousandsuns]

Judas Priest is a good band. British Steel is my favorite album, with timeless classics such as Breaking The Law and Living After Midnight.

 

[Mosh]

Judas Priest is a good band. British Steel is my favorite album, with timeless classics such as Breaking The Law and Living After Midnight.

Hi thousandsuns can you help me reactivate my Maidenfans account? I have been banned from posting and only you can help me.

 

[Mosh]

1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11:
12: Nostradamus
13: Redeemer of Souls
14: Ram It Down
15: Point of Entry
16: Jugulator
17: Demolition
18: Rocka Rolla

Highest Score: 18 (@Eddieson @Night Prowler)
Lowest Score: 1 (@Sth2112)

Coming in at #12 we have the truest black sheep of the Priest catalog, the rock opera Nostradamus. This album holds the unique honor of being the only Priest album to receive both a #1 ranking and a #18 ranking. It's also the first album we've had that ranked #1 on somebody's list, and will be the last for awhile. Needless to say, this album's scores were all over the place. Some people rated it pretty highly, a lot of people put it somewhere in the middle, and a few put it toward the bottom. It only barely beat out Redeemer of Souls (by 4 points) but it was 9 points below the next album, so there is a bit more of a gap there.

When revisiting the album for these rankings, I found myself being reminded of Dream Theater's Astonishing. Similarly controversial within the band's discographies, similar structure (mainly lots of interlude tracks for plot purposes), and they even came at a similar time in the bands' respective histories, which I think plays heavily into how fans see them. Both bands were settling into a new lineup and had previously released mostly well received albums that largely played things safe musically. For Priest, Angel of Retribution was about as standard of a Judas Priest album as you can get. To follow it up with Nostradamus was a bit of a WTF moment. The immediacy, the catchiness, the heaviness found on Angel are almost entirely absent on Nostradamus. The production is very thin, it's smothered in synthesizers, and with a few exceptions there aren't really any big headbanging moments. I wonder if Priest had released an album like Firepower after Angel of Retribution maybe they would have generated enough goodwill with audiences to try something bolder for the next album.

The other elephant in the room for me is the fact that they didn't properly tour the album. I respect the hell out of Priest for doing something as bold as Nostradamus, especially in that phase of their career, but I don't respect them for chickening out of touring it. This is has become a recurring problem with Priest where they make a new album and then hardly play anything live off it, which always gives the impression that they don't believe in the material that much. You could say maybe they were reacting to the lukewarm reception of Nostradamus, but it seems they do the same thing when the albums are highly well received (see Firepower touring). I'm not sure it would have made a big difference; going back to The Astonishing, Dream Theater heavily toured that album playing it in its entirety and it didn't seem to make a notable difference in the album's reception. But I do think playing the album in its entirety with a cool stage production, maybe some orchestral shows would have at least gotten the fans more excited about it.

As for the concept itself, I don't think the album was a bad idea. Nostradamus felt like a weirdly appropriate figure for Priest to tackle and every band has to try a concept album once I guess. I think the album fails to really deliver a cohesive narrative though. They needed a Bob Ezrin type figure to come in and really focus on the conceptual side of the album, because these songs feel very disparate musically. Lyrically it feels more like an episodic depiction of Nostradamus' life, but there isn't really a cohesive plot. It feels almost like if Iron Maiden had expanded Alexander the Great to a double concept album. I also think that when you look at the great classic double concept albums, there are always memorable songs that you can pull out of album context while also serving the narrative: Comfortably Numb, Pinball Wizard, Eyes of a Stranger, etc. I'm not going to say Nostradamus is without its highlights,* but so often during the album it feels like the band forgot to also write great songs. Frankly, it just feels like the band didn't know what they were doing and bit off more than they could chew.

It probably comes as no surprise that I'm not a huge Nostradamus fan. I really wanted to enjoy this album, I even remember being extremely excited the day it came out and listening to it uninterrupted several times. It has always just felt like such a slog to get through. For my own personal rankings, I put it at #16, right above the two Ripper albums (because at the end of the day it at least sounds like Judas Priest). So I actually think it is way too high on the list for me. In particular, I want to point out Redeemer of Souls and Ram It Down as far superior albums. I know both are pretty controversial among the fan base as well, but I can at least pull out a few great Priest songs from each album. Nostradamus, even in its best moments, does not give me a whole lot to go back to.

*Aside from the obvious Prophecy which was played live pretty heavily and most fans are familiar enough with, I really enjoy Revelation, Pestilence & Plague, Alone, and Persecution.

 

[MrKnickerbocker]

Nostradamus gets worse every time I hear it. At the core, there was a decent idea here. I think the one thing the band does right is the mood: they certainly achieved the dark, brooding atmosphere they were shooting for.

Unfortunately, the songs are all brooding. Brooding at 66 bpm. It's just such a slog. And yes, the album is way, way too long, but the songs themselves are too long with (often) zero musical changes! There's at least 5 tracks on here that just plod at the intro, plod through the middle, and end with plod. And don't even get me started on the waste of intro tracks...

The album opens well enough with a mystical little intro track and Prophecy, which is one of the best here (despite still being pretty average). From there, it's a complete wasteland of quality until the end of Disc 1. Peace/Conquest through Persecution is the longest run of actually solid material, with Persecution being the second or third best track on the whole album. Disc 2 is mostly a waste of time until the end (although Visions is alright). The final two songs are both good and easily the best material on the record. Hell, after 90 minutes of dreck they fucking better be!

Anyway, on this relisten, Nostradamus dropped nearly a full point and a half to land at a sad 5.0/10 for me. This makes it my (current) least favorite Halford album, and I bet that sticks even through my relisten to Turbo (which I'm sure is coming soon).

 

[MrKnickerbocker]

When revisiting the album for these rankings, I found myself being reminded of Dream Theater's Astonishing. Similarly controversial within the band's discographies, similar structure (mainly lots of interlude tracks for plot purposes), and they even came at a similar time in the bands' respective histories, which I think plays heavily into how fans see them. Both bands were settling into a new lineup and had previously released mostly well received albums that largely played things safe musically.

I thought the exact same thing. Although I also find The Astonishing to be a bloated slog, it's got a lot more going for it than Nostradamus. Dream Theater also being a band much more suited for such an idea considering they had already done big concepts a couple times.

For Priest, Angel of Retribution was about as standard of a Judas Priest album as you can get. To follow it up with Nostradamus was a bit of a WTF moment.

A good portion of Priest's discography is a WTF moment thanks to their trend chasing. The entirety of their 80s output was ping-ponging album styles back and forth from metal to pop/rock trying to catch up to a fanbase they never actually secured.

It probably comes as no surprise that I'm not a huge Nostradamus fan. I really wanted to enjoy this album, I even remember being extremely excited the day it came out and listening to it uninterrupted several times. It has always just felt like such a slog to get through. For my own personal rankings, I put it at #16, right above the two Ripper albums (because at the end of the day it at least sounds like Judas Priest). So I actually think it is way too high on the list for me. In particular, I want to point out Redeemer of Souls and Ram It Down as far superior albums. I know both are pretty controversial among the fan base as well, but I can at least pull out a few great Priest songs from each album. Nostradamus, even in its best moments, does not give me a whole lot to go back to.

100% the same. This has become my third least favorite Priest album and had I done this relisten before submitting my numbers to you I have no doubt my rating would have impacted Nostradamus' place in this list.

 

[DJMayes]

I quite like Nostradamus. There's definitely a lot of filler, but nothing I find particularly objectionable (which isn't true of some of the albums yet to be ranked). There are also a few tracks which are worth the price of admission; namely the title track, Visions, and the phenomenal Future of Mankind.

 

[Yax]

Back when Nostradamus came out, I played it on a daily basis for weeks. The affection has worn out quite a bit (at the time I thought it was the greatest album ever made), but I love the album warts and all. It would have benefited from fewer interludes, a song or two removed, proper keys, a chamber orchestra and a different production, but I still enjoy it quite a bit during the annual play-through.

 

[eddie666]

Ditch plodding Prophecy and pointless Conquest, add Alone and the hilarious title track and you've got an excellent 1st disc.
The rest's okay, but to start with the most boring track and insist on playing it live, doomed.

 

[Eddieson]

I will forever defend Nostradamus as my favourite Judas Priest album. Its a different beast to all the other slightly more easily digestable albums, but Nostradamus has always been such an experience front to back for me. So many melodic interludes where the songs can expand, breathe, where melodies can morph, big chorues, and a good dose of great guitar solos. It has the bangers like Percecution and Nostradamus, emotional songs like Alone and Future Of Mankind, and even songs with interesting and unusual cinematic interludes like War and Exiled. I like the Judas Priest formula that the band has stuck closer to with Redeemer, Firepower And Invincible Shield as well as most people do, but this feels like a brave experiment, an experiment that might not work for everyone, but I love the long journey through all 23 tracks, so much to unpack still.

 

[Azas]

I agree about interludes. So much delicious stuff there.

 

[Night Prowler]

Highest Score: 18 (@Eddieson

I will forever defend Nostradamus as my favourite Judas Priest album. Its a different beast to all the other slightly more easily digestable albums, but Nostradamus has always been such an experience front to back for me. So many melodic interludes where the songs can expand, breathe, where melodies can morph, big chorues, and a good dose of great guitar solos. It has the bangers like Percecution and Nostradamus, emotional songs like Alone and Future Of Mankind, and even songs with interesting and unusual cinematic interludes like War and Exiled. I like the Judas Priest formula that the band has stuck closer to with Redeemer, Firepower And Invincible Shield as well as most people do, but this feels like a brave experiment, an experiment that might not work for everyone, but I love the long journey through all 23 tracks, so much to unpack still.