Invincible Shield
diary
- artists
- Judas Priest
- review
Invincible Shield is the 19th studio album from my beloved band, Judas Priest. The year 2024 marked the band’s 50th anniversary. I’ve been listening to them since about 1984 and to me, Invincible Shield is their most incredible piece of work yet.
When Firepower came out in the spring of 2018, I thought that was as good as it got. That album is tremendous, and I still think it is, but Invincible Shield took me to an even higher plane. Every song has something to enjoy. I feel it’s the strongest thing they’ve ever produced.
The song, “The Serpent and the King” is the most ass kicking song of theirs…ever. This is coming from a fan that has almost every song they’ve ever done internalized. I was blown away when I heard it. I’ve been concerned about Rob’s ability to “flip an octave” and get into the higher registers but here he just crushes it. The whole song is up in the stratosphere for his voice and it’s perfect. The blistering rhythm just never lets go either, it immediately grabs you by the…well you know.
The other standout is Escape from Reality. It’s a slow, lumbering piece about Rob’s history of drug addiction, which I learned about from reading his bio, Confess. He had quite the cocaine habit in the 1980s. Naive little me, back then I hoped he was into no such thing, but nope, he sure was.
I certainly hope there’s some more left in this band’s gas tank, because I sort of thought they were waning with efforts like 2008’s Nostradamus and 2014’s Redeemer of Souls. I think the departure of guitar veterans K.K. Downing and Glen Tipton, and the introduction of Richie Faulkner and Andy Sneap has lit a fire under them and it really shows.
Looking forward to at least a couple more pieces of work from my favourite band. Rob is 72 years old, but still seems to have plenty of life as the “Metal God”.