This one took a long time to review. Judas Priest newest double album has been out for quite some time now and it is almost a shame we haven’t written a review about this yet. Reason being that this is quite a daunting album to listen to. Nostradamus is a concept album with 23 tracks and a playtime of almost two hours. You just can’t review that after just one listen. Having it heard a number of times now I still haven’t really decided what to think of this album.

 

You could wait for another five years and review the album in hindsight. But it just doesn’t work like that. Judas Priest has been always a band who didn’t like to repeat themselves. As they constantly developed their sound and approach to every new album, lyrically they weren’t exactly your Samuel Taylor Coleridge. So instead of making a new Painkiller, this time they decided to also pay more attention to the lyrics. The dark concept of the album is well written although I believe it could have been slightly better. But how far are you willing to go? It’s not like you’re writing a book.

This metal opera complete with classic scoring is quite some move from a band this far in their career. Of course Rob Halford’s high pitch vocals and the twin lead guitars by K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton is ominous present. On this particular recording special guest Don Airey, courtesy of Deep Purple, handles keyboard duties. Furthermore I can say that the music is simply good, it just hasn’t yet given me a lump in my throat yet. Tracks like ‘Prophecy’, ‘Visions’ and ‘Revelations’ (no not the Iron Maiden tune) might directly appeal to metal fans, other songs like ‘New Beginnings’ might not. It is difficult to pass final judgment. Gladly I noticed that I’m not the only reviewer who struggles with this. Maybe we need Nostradamus to prophesize what we eventually will think of the album.