Judas Priest easily could rest on its laurels at this stage of its career. However, the legendary metal band–singer Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill and drummer Scott Travis–refuses to do so, as evidenced by the impending arrival of its 18th studio album overall, “Firepower,” which can be pre-ordered here: http://smarturl.it/ Firepower.
Set for release Friday, March 9, via Epic Records, the album comprises 14 tracks of pure metal. To mark the occasion, Priest has reunited with producer Tom Allom (the man behind the board for all the band’s releases from 1979 to 1988, including such classics as “Unleashed in the East,” “British Steel,” “Screaming for Vengeance” and “Defenders of the Faith”) and with Grammy Award-winning producer Andy Sneap.
“Tom Allom has got this classic metal thing,” Halford said. “And Andy is a bit more of a ‘modern metal producer,’ but his thinking is a little bit different to Tom’s. And I think to get this balance between that classic old school metal to what Andy’s world is was just a remarkable coalescence.”
“Tom Allom has been with us since 1979, so his knowledge of ourselves and our music in general is immense,” Hill said.
Travis said Priest returned to a recording method that worked incredibly well on the band’s earlier classics. “We went back to the organic way of recording where it’s all of us in a room and we got to play together,” he said.
The album’s first single, “Lightning Strike,” was released worldwide on Friday, Jan. 5.
Full album pre-orders and a PledgeMusic pre-order (https://www.pledgemusic.com/ projects/judas-priest), which includes exclusive limited autographed colored vinyl, autographed vinyl test pressings, an exclusive Judas Priest T-shirt and a limited number of Judas Priest autographed guitars, are available now.
Priest’s tour in support of “Firepower” kicks off March 13.
“Firepower” track listing:
1. “Firepower”
2. “Lightning Strike”
3. “Evil Never Dies”
4. “Never the Heroes”
5. “Necromancer”
6. “Children of the Sun”
7. “Guardians”
8. “Rising from Ruins”
9. “Flame Thrower”
10. “Spectre”
11. “Traitors Gate”
12. “No Surrender”
13. “Lone Wolf”
14. “Sea of Red”