Judas Priest - Jugulator (1997)

Tracklist:
1. Jugulator
2. Blood Stained
3. Dead Meat
4. Death Row
5. Decapitate
6. Burn in Hell
7. Brain Dead
8. Abductors
9. Bullet Train
10. Cathedral Spires



There’s no excuse for this – 3,5/10

When you say Judas Priest, your mind instantly travels through time and you name up classics like “Tyrant”, “Beyond the Realms of Death”, “Metal Gods”, “Love Bites” or “Painkiller”. Without hesitation you think about Rob Halford’s high-pitched vocals and the superb guitarduels between Glenn Tipton and KK Downing. But there’s a darker side to this band and it came right up when Halford called it quits. As a result Tipton and Downing, both accustomed to writing good songs, took Halford-wannabe Tim Ripper Owens to replace the Metal God on vocals. Don’t you want to know how that turned out? No you don’t. I usually dig albums other people loath, but Jugulator just lacks creativity in every corner and sounds terribly uninspired. It’s been seven years since previous album Painkiller, which everyone remembers as one of Priest’s greatest. Whether Downing and Tipton wanted to create something in the same vein or something totally new is not clear. The music sounds like a parody of what Priest was before and I daresay the band just needed a reason to tour. And of course, there are enjoyable parts on this album, but most of it’s pushed towards the end of the record or it’s ruined by what follows.

Let’s begin with Halford’s replacement Tim “Ripper” Owens. Some people praise his vocal talents and his range, saying he resembles Rob Halford. Well, he tries very hard to resemble the man, but he does not really succeed. Halford could actually sing in the higher regions of his range, while Owens only screams and he doesn’t even hit half the height Halford does. Not that it matters, but the man really is annoying to listen to. His screams sound fucked up, his lower voice sounds cheesy as hell and sometimes he just sounds like a barbarian that’s about to attack a wild boar. Then there’s the boring songwriting. There are riffs I made up the first year I picked up a guitar. The best example is the opening track “Jugulator”. It begins with a nice machine-like rhythm (could make you think Priest is joining the industrial rise), but is quickly ruined by a cheese-evil theme and eventually bursts out into a three chord riff that is just too ridiculous for words. The lyrics on the song are so wannabe Halford, about freaky monsters and terribly beasts. But this is not convincing. The same formula of boring riffs and annoying vocals is used at tracks like “Dead Meat” or “Decapitate”. It sounds just so unprofessional it’s like a textbook “How to make my first metal song”. Then there’s “Death Row”, which actually flows pretty well if you don’t count the tiresome fragment at the beginning... that is, until you hear the chorus. Are we listening to a band playing (or trying to play) metal or is this a child’s party and we’re singing nice cozy songs?

Then the positive side of the album... I’ve been negative for far too long now. As I mentioned before there are some better songs near the end of the album with the exception of “Blood Stained”, which is number two. The said song is not really different from the others around it in terms of sound, riffage or structure, but the major difference is: it flows and stays cool ‘til the end. This is also what makes “Abductors” and “Bullet Train” more successful creations than crap like “Burn in Hell” or “Dead Meat”. And if a song doesn’t flow, it’s not a good song. If it does, then you can be proud like on “Bullet Train”, which is full of adrenaline and deserves to be written by Judas Priest, and “Abductors”, which begins evil and stays evil. And when you’ve achieved that, you find you can also like Owens’ vocals. Then there’s “Cathedral Spires”; the long song of the album. Peaking at a little over nine minutes, this song is a true epic consisting of three parts: the first part is a ballad, the second a rocker with an anthemic chorus and the third is a mesmerizing continuation of the anthem from part two. And when you’re done listening to these tracks, you begin to wonder why they didn’t bother to write more songs that actually sound good?

In short, Jugulator is a bad album with some positive surprises. This is Judas Priest being totally confused about what the hell they are, what they’re supposed to do and what the hell metal is. Still, I would recommend the last three tracks to any Priest fan, since they are really good tracks. As for the overall album; avoid it. Don’t be seduced by the cover.

Strongest tracks: “Bullet Train” and “Cathedral Spires”.
Weakest tracks: “Jugulator”, “Dead Meat”, “Death Row” and the others minus “Blood Stained” and “Abductors.