Classic Rock Bottom

The second of four albums I picked up during Record Store Day.

 

Judas Priest

Nostradamus

Epic Records - 2008

http://www.judaspriest.com

 

A 2 disc 23 song Judas Priest concept album about the life and times of Nostradamus? Wow that sounds freaking cool.

Until you hear the album anyway.

Four songs: "Prophecy", "Persecution," "Visions" and "Nostradamus" are really good songs. "Prophecy" would've been a freaking cool song to hear on a standard JP record.

Unfortunately for me, beyond those four songs, this album was a colossal bore. The instrumental pieces meant, I'm guessing, to establish a mood or a tone were annoying, and too often the lyric driven songs were just mind-numbingly dull. It's like they forgot, for the most part, that as a rock band, no matter what they are attempting to do, they've still gotta bring the ROCK.

I'm tempted to call this a noble failure because I like the idea of the band stretching their artistic wings this late in their career. But whatever target they were aiming for, they missed by about 137 miles.

 

Rating: D PLUS

 

Views: 19

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Agree with your take on this.  I cant forget that this was Halford rejoining the band as well.  Thats the main reason why I bought it.  I thought that them coming back together would ignite some sort of cool creative period and that Nostradamus would be a cool topic for that creativity to come through.  But as you say they missed the target by a long ways and this CD sits collecting dust, where it will likely stay until I re-sell it to the used CD store (providing they want to buy it back that is)
This was Halford's 2nd CD back with JP, not the first. Angel of Retribution was the first one and while the last track on that CD sucked, the rest of the album was fantastic. Did you not get that one?
oops...  your right, I was actually disappointed in both of them.
And I was stoked when this came out and bought the deluxe version. It is gathering dust with Rjhog's!
As I've stated before, I'm probably one of the few folks on here that doesn't particularly like JP.  And I'll admit, I really have never given them much of a chance.  This is the only album by JP that I own, but I've never listened to it.  From what I've heard here, I'm not missing much.  I would like to eventually purchase Sad Wings Of Destiny (is that title correct?).

Yes, that is one of their albums.

 

I think your review is spot on regarding "Nostradamus." The Priest are one of my favorite bands ever, and I thought the comeback album they did with Halford called "Angel of Retribution" while not classic was a much better effort. This one went on way too long and frankly was a boring album. I had heard they were planning to record one more album but with KK leaving the band who knows. In my opinion, KK Downing and Glenn Tipton were the greatest dual lead guitarists in heavy music. Priest are also the second most important true metal band behind Black Sabbath in the history of music.

To respond to RJ, "Sad Wings" was Priest second album. It is not a bad listen, but they still hadn't completely found their sound at that point. In my opinion "Sin After Sin" was their first really good record. If you want to learn more about the Priest, "Screaming For Vengenance" and "Defenders of the Faith" are where I would start. If you don't like those, you won't like the Priest.

RSS

Question Of The Week

CRB Features (Click photo to visit)

Birthdays

There are no birthdays today

CRB Staff Members

 

In Memory Of

Norma Jean Fox
(11/30/1945-9/7/2010)

Photos

  • Add Photos
  • View All

Videos

  • Add Videos
  • View All

Badge

Loading…

© 2024   Created by RJhog (Admin).   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service