Judas Priest - Nostradamus
June 20 2008 at 07:18:46 AM  Let the gods sort 'em out. Finally, after months of delays, Judas Priest's 16th album has arrived and we can now take stock of the music as well as the inevitable fallout. After listening to the album and taking into account how many had questioned whether or not the group could even pull off their first concept album, as well as fear and apprehension over the concept itself – based on the life and times of the titular 16th century prophet – most of these doubts reveal themselves to be born out of misreading not only the concept, but also the history of the band, both before and after having heard Nostradamus. To start, I’m not exactly sure what Adrien Begrand (Pop Matters) means when he complains that the concept is far too obvious and in the end, too corny. Relatively few in-depth references to the occult and astrological flimflam find their way into the album’s long-reaching track list (although some of seer's alleged prophecies do align nicely with the band’s well-known portrayals of sinister technology, religion and warfare). Instead, the album overwhelming focuses on the human aspects of Nostradamus, his life, struggle and legacy. And while certain biographical points stray from the scholarly consensus on their veracity, the story is adequately resolved through the band’s most consistent themes: Being ostracized, shut out, subjected to loss, personal and spiritual conflicts, one’s duty, mortality and perseverance in spite of all this. Say what you will about the cover art, but instead of writing pandering anthems to motorcycles and leather, which conceptually would be awful, Priest address their audience in a more indirect, but clear and well thought out fashion motivated by the same conceits that helped drive the band through their most fruitful years. In that context, being obvious is a welcome return for the band, who are better suited than anyone to adapt the legend into song. If anyone think s it’s all about stargazing and divination, then you've got another thing comin'. Likewise, I don’t know what to make of Keith Bergman’s response (Blabbermouth), when he snipes (echoing Begrand) that Priest has “never been one for great lyrics,” which should be qualified by taking into account tracks like “Epitaph”, “Savage,” “Electric Eye” and “Beyond the Realms of Death” – songs that gracefully defined Metal’s persistent infatuations and whose sentiment resurfaces on Nostradamus. The libretto won’t win any points for style, but that’s unfairly raising the bar. More important now is where their heads are at and how that vision is ultimately executed. If you can take in the whole of Priest’s work and still arrive at the conclusion that “The Ripper” is their defining moment, then yeah, Nostradamus may not be for you. With all that said, the album isn’t perfect. The symphonic arrangements underlining each song can be crowding and often veer into chintzy, Playstation-type soundtracks - no more problematic than the way in which the Holstian girth of “War” is overtaken by the board’s RPG tenor (reflected in the video for the new track); the weightlessness of "Hope" and “New Beginnings” are a definite scar on album’s second half and “Conquest” is a fairly middle-of-the-road track which stands out for hitting on that classic Priest chord tone and the slight, operatic tinge in the delivery. The ballad “Lost Love” is also a little too Beaches, though tempered in part by Halford’s genuinely weary and heart-aching delivery. On the other hand, far too much has been made regarding the album’s length and pacing across both discs. The much dreaded interludes (nine in total) generally work well from track to track and when devoid of any moving vocal or guitar lines (And I can think of only one: "Solitude") are so brief as to be inconsequential. Although written predominantly in mid-tempo, tracks like “Revelations,” featuring Tipton and Downing back in form, guitars glinting as they peel across the melodies, “Persecution,” "Pestilence and Power" (The Italian chorus does take some getting used to) “Visions” and “Exiled” are hardly lacking in power and provide some of the album’s strongest material. The same is true of “Alone,” a particularly rousing anthem to outcasts the world over, which could be viewed as being both self-referential as well as a nod to Priest's fans, completed by a mixture of acoustic guitars and faux-string orchestration that build toward a graceful finale. The only genuinely slow track, “Death,” is indeed a sluggish piece marking new territory for Priest but peaks with one of Nostradamus’s better instances of the keys serving the album well as the guitars die down and Halford’s voice is split among 3 to 4 different vocal tracks painting a grim landscape of defeat, souls wafting from bodies of those succumbed to the plague. When the album does pick up the pace, particularly toward the end as the band rips through the title track in a superb display of Halford-becoming-hellion lung-busting, it actually does means something, both thematically and in terms of the skill on display. Taking into account his past recordings, age and habits, Halford's performance on Nostradamus is nothing less than the work of a still unrivaled master. When challenged to work within his natural limitations, the iconic frontman produces the most diverse range of sonance in his entire career. Just listen to the chorus of “Future of Mankind,” a track which tellingly deplores a sobbing fatalism and instead looks forward to eminent change, and tell me the album suffers because he’s not hitting the fuckin’ high notes. Nostradamus is not a masterpiece. It is a genuine attempt by one of most influential and well-regarded bands in Heavy Metal to once again make a valid artistic statement rather than rest on their laurels. We can entertain its faults because, largely, it succeeds. And if that means the album will only appeal to those diehard Priest fans, well, at this point I’m not sure who else even matters. [Todd DePalma] Comments (0)
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