Album/EP

Judas Priest - Invincible Shield (Album Review)

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Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Mar 2, 2024

7 min read

Judas Priest – Invincible Shield
Released: March 8th, 2024

Line Up

Rob Halford || vocals
Glenn Tipton || guitars
Richie Faulkner || guitars
Ian Hill || bass guitar
Scott Travis || drums

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Let’s not mess around with this one – it is awesome that we have a new Judas Priest album. We knew it was on the right track from the pre-release singles, but to listen to it in full and have it hit the higher end of expectations makes this old neck headbang. It’s now 50 years since their debut and we can’t take it for granted that Judas Priest will record and tour forever.

With great longevity comes great responsibility and anything a band like Priest does has to meet both the expectations of fans and the weight of their back catalogue. In 2018, Firepower became the first album since Rob Halford left in 1991 to unequivocally add to the band’s legacy. With that amount of pressure, how can the new record Invisible Shield possibly raise the bar again?

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The band fires their best shot first with the opening track and first single, ‘Panic Attack’. Don’t let the synth and guitar intro fool you, it’s a bruising, aggressive song. Halford harmonises with himself, recalling the later 80s period (think Turbo or Ram it Down). The guitar duo of Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton hammer the fretboard and shred those strings, evoking the classic metal sound fans will clamour for. So far so good.

The old school vibes continue on ‘The Serpent and the King’ in which Halford’s rapid-fire vocal delivery (pun intended) recalls the all-time classic ‘Painkiller’. It’s got that metal sheen too, it’s hard, fast and heavy. Like ‘Panic Attack’, the hook is instantly memorable and there’s a great instrumental section with Tipton/Faulkner cutting loose. It’s followed by the fist-pumping anthem ‘Invincible Shield’, a call to arms that gives drummer Scott Travis plenty of room to smash and keep the rhythm going. At 62, Travis has no problem setting a blinding pace and forcing the band’s older trio of Halford, Tipton and Ian Hill to keep up.

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Faulkner is the youngest and newest member and his injection of energy pays off like it did on Firepower. He has no problem composing riffs that fit the band’s tradition of duelling guitars. ‘Devil in Disguise’ has a meaty mid-tempo riff. ‘Gates of Hell’ is a brilliant melodic riff before getting down to a serious groove with soaring leads. The harmony in the solo is just *chef’s kiss*. It’s bread and butter stuff for Priest but if this is the baseline expectation then they can meet it without embarrassing themselves. The riffing is complemented by Halford being a metal lord storyteller mode. He was born to sing about devils and demons and channels his legendary pipes to deliver his lyrics with conviction.

Halford as storyteller really pays off on the epic ‘Crown of Horns’. The guitars are a little more progressive, leaning into power metal, but it’s Rob who gets to sink his teeth into this tale of forlorn love. It’s the closest Invincible Shield comes to a ballad and the balance of the album is better for it.

Outside of ‘Crown of Horns’, the album is Priest turned up to eleven. Where Firepower really did touch on a number of the band’s different historical elements, Invincible Shield really goes for the jugular more often than not.

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Halford snarls his way through the high octane ‘As God is My Witness’. They slow down a little on the thumping ‘Trial By Fire’. Both songs have great hooks too so you’ll be singing along after hearing the chorus once. Glenn Tipton chimes in with the riffs on ‘Escape From Reality’, a tune that is colossal from the opening riff to the chug in the verses. Hill really keeps the groove too with his bottom-end bass. There’s a mechanical precision that remains the envy of other bands.

Tipton’s other co-write is much looser – ‘Sons of Thunder’ is a biker anthem that adds to their tradition of highway anthems. It also underlines the album’s only real issue. All of it feels derivative of something else in their catalogue. Whether this is a problem for you likely reveals how you feel about new music from legacy acts in general. Every track is unmistakably Judas Priest and none of it is bad, embarrassing or boring. It’s comfort food, not a meal you’ll remember for years to come.

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The exception to this is the final track ‘Giants in the Sky’. It starts as another metal beast but fades into a classical guitar section that’s more progressive than anything else on the album. Halford’s vocal is more of a croon on this section but it sadly switches back to the main riff rather quickly. So there’s still a sense of musical adventure somewhere in there, but the band have clearly committed to pleasing fans and those musical detours to their core sound are infrequent.

After 50 years we can’t take Judas Priest for granted and they don’t take their fans for granted either. Invincible Shield is 11 tracks of classic Priest with little filler, even if it’s not all killer, they give their loyal fans exactly what they want. If you know your history, they haven’t always followed successful albums with another so the fact this is almost as great as Firepower is good enough.