The whole thing seemed like an outtake from Spinal Tap.
I also questioned if they'd even pull it off - seemed like a long winded endeavor that the band was sinking a couple of years into. Never a good time line for an album. Seems like the best ones come together quickly.
So, image my surprise to stumble onto a free Web stream of the song Nostradamus (all six minutes and forty five seconds of it) courtesy of Priest itself (and Epic Records). Check it out here.
After listening a few times, I was reminded of the Eastern feel of Iron Maiden's Powerslave, but to an insane degree. This thing starts out like heavy metal theater. But when the whole band kicks in double time speed metal and Halford issues a hearty scream, I gotta say, I can't rule this thing out until I hear the whole thing.
Dare I say, might they have actually pulled this off???
Note that Priest is on tour this summer with Heaven and Hell (Dio-led Sabbath), Motorhead and Testament. That is a no-lose bill. Jeez! Of course, no Northwest dates yet.
10 comments:
I agree with your assessment of the music. The intro is pretty corny, but the rest of the piece is surprisingly listenable.
I had a hard time following the lyrics, so can't really figure out where they are going with the Nostradamus theme. My gut instinct is that in our modern times, and with all the heavy stuff going down, they could have picked a slightly more culturally relevant theme than some half-baked French poet with "predictive" (NOT) powers. But I guess that is heavy metal for you.
I'll need to hear more to judge, but the music seems to show potential.
I'm with both of you on this. I'm hoping for a NW show like you wouldn't believe. I never saw Priest back in their heyday, so I'm hoping they come around.
I have to mention a dream I had last night:
Isorski burned out a Marshall stack at Guitar Center while trying out a new Colorfield riff. Before he started, he discreetly warned me to leave the store; I just put earplugs in and hid behind some stuff before the smoke started pouring out the back of the stack. Needless to say, the salesman wasn't pleased, but Isorski wasn't apologetic either. He stood up for his right to rock by strongly conveying a "hey, that's the price of doing business in this line of work, dude" attitude to the manager, "if the stack couldn't take a little loud riffing, you just wasted MY time, buddy."
See, who needs Nostradaums and his vague dreamy poetry when you can have dreams that play out like a documentary!
Man do I hate Guitar Center. I am glad I was able to irritate one of their pushy salesman with a face melting lead.
You know, that dream isn't too far off from an encounter Jimmy, the guitarist in my band, had at a local shop. He went in there to get a couple single strings because his bulk order hadn't arrived yet, and got to looking at their gear and chatting the guys (it's a small town, they know who he is, etc.). They deal Mesa amps and just started carrying BC Rich in addition to the PRS stuff. Jimmy is a Les Paul guy primarily; he has a sweet custom shop axe with a beautiful butterscotch finish, but he also has a strat he uses for some stuff. Uses a Rivera Knucklehead and a Matchless DC30. So while different guys have different opinions, clearly he is using top shelf stuff, you know? Anyway, these guys are all over him asking him what he uses, that what they have is so much better, blah blah blah. Then he takes one of the BC Rich guitars and plugs into a Mesa and starts cranking the midrange up and the salesguy is like, "whoa, whoa, whoa, these amps really aren't designed to have those knobs turned up that high!" I mean crikey, first a guy walks in and you tell him his $10K or whatever in gear is shit, then proceed to say your "better gear" isn't designed to be cranked up a little bit? It was a pretty funny story to hear, which I was on the receiving end of over the phone moments after it all went down.
Art imitates life.
What kind of shit is that? Amps are made to be cranked. Especially Mesa Boogie amps! Pete Townshend used those quite a bit, if I recall. Which means they were cranked frequently. Jerk wad Guitar Center freaks.
Back to the topic at hand...
I don't mind Judas Priest music but I never really got into them in high school (mid 1980's) when they were in their hayday. I remember my good friedn Steve Guertin telling me that they were the only band he has ever seen live that takes longer to end a song than it does to actually play it.
It will be interesting to see what this album turns out to be. Nice to hear that Rob Halford can still scream with the best of them...
This discussion isn't as off-topic as it looks, Dr. John. Like our pal Nostradamus, with Chris's story of Jimmy's experience and my dream, we're giving some future band (perhaps even some frozen-head incarnation of Judas Priest) some mysterious inspirational mythology for a comeback opera/album in 500 years.
Scott Travis - One of the most overlooked drummers in metal. This guy is amazing,starting with the LA band RacerX in the late 80's
Voxmoose - sell that idea to Matt Groenig for an episode of Futurama. You could make a fortune...
Post a Comment