JUDAS PRIEST — Nostradamus (review)

Album · 2008 · Heavy Metal

1.5/5 · 2011-07-04
topofsm

After 15 albums of solid Priest, you may think you are pretty sure you know what you're getting into with the group. Sure, you've got your pop rock years of Turbo and your more basic hard rock esque stuff on Sad Wings, but it's still always been Priest. That being said, Nostradamus is pretty unexpected, being a double album leaning just a bit more towards prog and symphonic tendencies than we've known these guys to do.

Sure, you've got your standard Heavy Metal riffs a la Downing and Tipton all over the place, and Halford's vocals are unmistakable. But you may be shocked when the short intro is a more orchestral synthesized piece. The band has taken their ambition up to eleven in working on a concept album about, well, Nostradamus. There are short tracks that bridge between longer songs and add more concept into the two disc tale. That being said, your patience probably won't match the band's effort.

For one thing, for having plenty of Judas Priest tracks about such a mystical or legendary figure as Nostradamus, the "epic" feel doesn't show up as much as it could. Many of the tracks have a distinct midtempo feel to them and lack energy. That can be justified, as these guys have been rocking since 1974, giving these guys 34 years of metal by the release of this album. That being said, it's still not terribly satisfying hearing a rather slow and standard singing of "I am Nostradamus" in "Prophecy" when you've heard Halford tearing his vocals apart singing about the Painkiller before.

Another thing is, a lot of the metal elements have been toned down. There is a lot of symphonic influence, especially for a Heavy Metal band. This does not help, as for a band as raw and emotional as they've been in the past, they've relied a lot on their metal guitars and drums to bring them their acclaim, rather than synthesized strings and trumpets. They aren't even that particularly good, most of them are simple melodic lines and chords that don't really emulate the scope of an orchestra or even the concept at all. There are plenty of symphonic metal bands that bring out a grandiose feel that one can't help but feel is missing here. Tracks like "War" are such a disappointment when it sounds like a great place for some growling guitars along with the keyboards, but the synthesized strings overtake the guitar and it sounds like a very half-assed piece from a musical.

Anyone can point to the excuse of the band not feeling like making blasting and energetic music in the past, but there seems to be no excuse when you get to the penultimate title track "Nostradamus", which is filled with everything that makes Priest Great. It's almost as if they made an entire double album of slow to midpaced tracks to build up to this one song. Everything's catchy and rather heavy, and their cheers for the title character sound impassioned. And Scott Travis' kit seems like it started working again after over an hour of simple rock beats.

It should come to no surprise that any band should fall to becoming your average standard metal band after so many years of putting out quality work. Judas Priest have long put in the effort over the years to emblazon their names in metal history for years to come. If they feel they must put out rather tired sounding records, they have earned the respect from the metal community to do it. As long as they play their fist pounding stuff live, and tracks like the title track on this one, it shouldn't matterl. Overall, Judas Priest fans will of course get this album, but it's really not necessary for most metal fans. Even for fans, I would recommend some heavy sampling, as it's not your Priest you've come to know.