Judas Priest's 2005 release, 'Angel of Retribution' marked a re-birth in the bands career as the Metal God himself, Mr. Rob Halford reunited with Glen, K.K., Ian and Scott after a twelve year absence from the band during which he pursued various other musical adventures. JP was also initially on hiatus upon Rob's departure, but in the late 90's Tim "Ripper" Owens stepped in to try and fill Rob's vacant slot and together they released, 'Jugulator' in '97 and 'Demolition' in '01, but not with much success or conviction behind these records. So, eventually Rob took his throne of metal supremacy once again and Angel of Retribution was the result, which strangely seems to have received mixed reviews, but I think this record is absolutely excellent.The album opens with the powerful opener, 'Judas Rising' and its apparent immediately that JP is back in full hard hitting force. However things just get better when the speedy and quite catchy, 'Deal with the Devil' erupts from my speakers and goddamn do I ever love the third song, 'Revolution.' Rob sounds absolutely fantastic on this anthem and you'd think after thirty plus years of singing his voice would have given out, but no, he sounds just as fantastic as ever. 'Worth Fighting For' is a bit mellower and with a little bit of classic 70's JP charm here too while 'Wheels of Fire' is one of those driving songs, you know the ones you blast at obnoxiously loud volumes to drown out the disgusting everthings of society, yeah one of those numbers and I love it. 'Angel' is the albums ballad and its perfect and utterly beautiful in its delivery too whilst 'Hellrider' is another one of those straight forward heavy metal blazing balls of fire that you just got to love. The tenth and final song, 'Lochness' is JP's attempt at writing a lengthy (14 mins) epic and while I find the chorus to be quite memorable other parts of the song are not so lasting and after a while the song just becomes repetitive, but its not awful.
Also if you get the digipak version of this album you'll get a bonus DVD, which has a documentary with the band discussing the reunion as well as a short eight song live set that consists of JP classics.
While AoR is by no means the greatest entry in the legendary Judas Priest catalog it is in fact quite a good record and a successful comeback for Rob. I think folks problem with this album is that they were expecting Painkiller part II, which to me would have been pointless, because you really can't top one of the most classic metal albums ever and its probably not worth trying either. This album does however have plenty of Painkiller-ness within it, but there's also a great deal of 70's JP included, especially, 'Stained Class,' and 'Sad Wings of Destiny' seem to be the most obvious albums they referenced.
I never got around to hearing the bands most recent, 'Nostradamus' album, but much like this one the reviews seemed to be quite mixed, which may very well mean I've been missing out on a fantastic record. In the end if you're longing for some modern metal played in the classic and true way then look no further than Judas Priest's most awesome, 'Angel of Retribution.'
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