Glenn Tipton - Parkinson’s

[4stringer77]

Tipton or not, this new album's as solid an effort from the band as any for as long as they've been around.

[amptech]

Tipton or not, this new album's as solid an effort from the band as any for as long as they've been around.

I attended a party on saturday, someone put on the whole record.
Not shure what to think, most comments was in the 'impressing concidering Halford's age' area.

Maybe it's just me listening to modern productions with a sceptical ear.  I agree that this album is a solid effort, but the energy
of the music just does not reach me. Towards the end of the album they turned up the volume, but the music still was more loud than hard. Then they put on defenders of the faith and later a couple of 50's rock albums,all oozing with energy at proper volume levels.

Maybe I'm too picky - but I hear this on so many  albums - and specially on recent (post 2000) records by classic rock bands.
Comparing these albums with work from their heydays might not be fair, but when I hear 'this is my best album since school's out' and so on, I tend to translate it to 'the producers found a way to add energy that wasn't there to begin with'.

[doombass]

Yes, most of the surviving old bands' modern albums are soundwise overprocessed IMO. Like Accept who has made good albums for the last 8 years but soundwise, while they have an "in your face"-sound they lack the airy dynamic feel of for example Balls to the wall.

[Basvarken]

Halford and Hill are in their late sixties. It would be rather ridiculous if they sounded like a bunch of twenty year olds.
I listened to a song of the new Judas Priest album yesterday to see what you guys are talking about.
I have to admit I've never been a Judas Priest fan. And that new song sure did not change that. It sounds rather generic to me.

It must be hard to be a metal band who had their hey day more than three decades ago. Putting out a new album every two years or so, with songs that no fan really cares to hear. On tour they have to play the old songs every night and when they throw in a new song everyone goes for a piss or a drink.

[4stringer77]

Personally, I'd take any of their output from Painkiller and after over most of the stuff that came before. I didn't grow up being a huge Judas Priest fan so I'm not clouded by nostalgia like most. The demand for the older material is frustrating for the band as they admit.

[lowend1]

IMHO, everything after Screaming For Vengeance is instantly forgettable.

[uwe]

As usual, I'm the odd man out, my favourite Priest albums are the ones regularly damned by the faithful: I like the new-wavy Point Of Entry and the Priest-goes-Billy-Idol Turbo best. Of the older albums I like Sin after Sin and Killing Machine/Hell Bent For Leather (US title) for their sheer variety. Never a huge fan of Painkiller which was produced by Chris Tsangarides - I preferred Tom Allom's more dry previous productions, perhaps because he is similar to Martin Birch who forged the Deep Purple sound. (When Priest first became known in Germany in the late 70ies, the "Poor man's Deep Purple - they sold the Hammond and bought leather outfits instead!"-allegations came thick and fast.)

I still have to listen to the new album more often to pass judgement. Halford sounds good on it, but the vocal tracks are much more laboriously treated than in the days of yore. He beefs up his voice by adding falsetto tracks in the background where in the past he would have screamed his pure "falsetto" (according to Tom Allom, Halford's high voice is not a falsetto in a singing technique sense). On the first two listens I also noticed "decidedly less Glenn" in the guitar arrangements department. Scott Travis is a great guy and an impeccable heavy metal drummer - as usual, his machine gun bass drum drowns out most of Ian Hill! 

I agree that modern heavy metal productions suffer from an extremely compressed and overly massive sound, "the Nickelback syndrome". A little air and space would do those productions good, but I guess prevailing tastes have changed.

"I've never been a Judas Priest fan." That figures, Rob, they are so pleasantly un-Zep! 

[uwe]

This is a very instructive piece, confirms how long and how intensively he has been battling the disease, his work on Firepower is obviously cut and paste which must be bitter for someone as fluid and dexterous on the guitar as he once was:

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/rob-halford-says-parkinsons-stricken-glenn-tipton-rejected-idea-of-performing-with-backing-tapes/

[gearHed289]

IMHO, everything after Screaming For Vengeance is instantly forgettable.

Yup. For me, it's all about Unleashed in the East. The only Priest I've ever owned.

[uwe]

Yes, one of their more popular studio albums. Japanese handclaps were flown in. 

[Basvarken]

"I've never been a Judas Priest fan." That figures, Rob, they are so pleasantly un-Zep! 

Never been a real Zep fan either ;-)
As a young lad I was into Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy and Dio. And later Queensrÿche and Satan/Blind Fury.

[uwe]

Pah, Iron Maiden and their cluttered compositions, no chance against the steely elegance of my beloved Priest! 

And Saxon were more fun than Iron Maiden too!

But Iron Maiden have balls. When they release an off-the-wall album they tour it mercilessly, playing it full length and ditching their usual concert hits. Priest chickened out when they released Nostradamus, their failed concept album, they should have taken that on the road full length, but they flinched and only played two or three songs from it, self-defeating the whole concept.

In fact, all three - Iron Maiden, Judas Priest & Saxon - are pretty much devoid of Zep influences. That was more a thing found with US hard rock and heavy metal bands.

"Never been a real Zep fan either ..." - I know, but you have that thing for rock bands with a black groove - Mother's Finest, Vintage Trouble or Living Colour - and JP is obviously totally devoid of that, their rhythm feel is as Yüröpeän as a vampire movie. Zep is much less guilty in that department, in fact for a bunch of Brits they could be relatively groovy and funky. Perhaps one of the reasons they left such an imprint on the US of A.

[Basvarken]

Pah, Iron Maiden and their cluttered compositions, no chance against the steely elegance of my beloved Priest! 

And Saxon were more fun than Iron Maiden too!

Haha, true about the cluttered compositions.
As if I cared when I was thirteen/fourteen! In hindsight I guess that was what I liked in heavy metal bands back then.
It took me a few years to recognize the beauty of a good AC/DC or ZZ Top song.
I said goodbye to Iron Maiden when I saw them on the Seventh Son tour. All of a sudden I thought they were rather ridiculous. And retroactively I started to think lots of their songs were indeed cluttered compositions.

And oh yeah, Saxon. I liked some of their songs too. Stop! Get out! We are the strong arm of thew law-ooooh!
Never saw the "steely elegance" of Judas Priest though...

[4stringer77]

AC/DC is simple stuff but they have an excuse since they're Australian and the more rootsy blues based rock riffage is a saving grace. ZZtop is also compositionally simple but again, Billy Gibbons has Texas blues based mojo for days. Songs like, you've got another thing coming, breaking the law and living after midnight simply sound like they were written by someone with Down's syndrome, no offense to those with Down's syndrome of course.

[Basvarken]

sound like they were written by someone with Down's syndrome.

You mean they are joyous, open, straight forward and honest?