judas priest

#1112: Comfort Albums (ft. Peter Kerr)

RECORD STORE TALES #1112: Comfort Albums (ft. Peter Kerr)

Pulling into the driveway, you breath a sigh of relief after a long day at the grind.  Walking in the front door, removing your shoes, you begin to feel human once again.  Nobody is home and the place is yours.  After a stressful day like today, no more TV or news would help you relax.  You set about preparing dinner, and select some new albums to listen to.  More recent music, relatively speaking  Comfort albums.  Albums that feel like an old slipper, that remind you of a past era.  Familiar sounding music that just isn’t made this way anymore.  What do you choose?

I have a few records that fit this bill for me.  The latest is Invincible Shield by Judas Priest.  It is remarkable that this band have had such highs and lows, but still manage to put out a career-high record 50 years after their debut.  There are throwbacks a-plenty, of very high quality.  Some riffs or choruses bring you back to the 80s and Defenders of the Faith.  Several sound of the Painkiller era, particularly because of Scott Travis’ double bass.  Others pulls back to the 70s and Hell Bent for Leather.  Though the modern production and vocals of Rob Halford keep the album in the present, it otherwise sounds akin to the records I love so much from my youth.  They are of the same blood.

It takes a lot for new music to get my blood pumping the way my old favourites do.  When I play Invincible Shield, I’m 15 or 16 years old again, excited for this new album and rooting for my heavy metal heroes on a job well done.  It’s a comfort album.  The warm air of nostalgia blows through my window as another amazing outro guitar solo fades into silence.  I half expect to have to get up and flip the tape soon, so far back am I taken.

Peter Kerr of Rock Daydream Nation, who suggested this topic, had his own example.

“Black Ice,” he said.  “AC/DC did not put an album out for eight years.  “I bought it, and played the first track ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Train’.  It was like a comfort album…big smile on the face!”

Indeed, I remember hearing that song on the radio myself and just being happy to hear a new song that sounded like AC/DC.   Perhaps once upon a time, new AC/DC music was just expected regularly, like your tax bills.  Then there came a time when we had to cherish a new AC/DC album.  Black Ice was the first one where I felt like, “Let’s savour this one this time.”

Another album that had that comforting effect, but not because it’s by a heritage band, is 2022’s Impera by Ghost.  Now here is a band that loves throwbacks, but are not content to stick to any particular style or direction.  Listening to the Ghost discography was like rapidly traveling forward in time, until Impera seemingly brought us to the year 1987.

Impera is one of my favourite albums to play on my way home from work.  With the sun sometimes right in my eyeline and impatient drivers zooming from lane to lane, the commute home is best assuaged by good music that helps me decompress.  “Spillways”, “Watcher in the Sky” and “Griftwood” are the three that specifically warm me like a favourite blanket on a cold day.  They simply don’t make music like this very often anymore.  Oh sure, lots of bands try to do that “80s thing” but few can really trick your brain into thinking you went back in time.  Ghost do it, and they do it frequently.  Not just Impera, but also on Prequelle with songs like “Danse Macabre”.  The single “Kiss the Go-Goat” sounds like something from 1970 and might have a similar effect on someone from that era.

You feel the strain leave your body as you tap your feet to the song.  Comfort music often gets you to move.  I can’t help but play air guitar or air drums to real comfort music.  That’s just good, healthy activity!  I’m speaking about a certain age group here, but as it gets continually more effortful to get up and rock a bit, music like this becomes more and and more precious.

Here I am, as my back aches and my right shoulder reminds me it’s healing from injury, and I’m playing vigorous air guitar to the lively “Fight of Your Life” by Judas Priest.  I cannot throw shapes like I did in my bedroom at age 15, but I do OK, and it feels alright.  Until my elbow says “no more” and my knees falter!

The music feels good.  You can use any number of words:  nostalgic, warm, energising, recapturing…there is something unique about a true comfort album that just makes you say “Thank God this exists.  I needed this, to make me feel this way.  Thank you for the music!”

REVIEW: Judas Priest – Invincible Shield (2024 Deluxe with bonus tracks)

JUDAS PRIEST – Invincible Shield (2024 Epic Deluxe with bonus tracks)

I don’t usually write “first impressions” reviews, because I like the albums to have time to sink in, and to consider my opinions.

I’ll break some rules this time.

Invincible Shield tops Firepower and could be the best Priest album since Defenders.  Or maybe even before that…

The highlights are many and the riffs are strong.  Rob’s voice has not changed in 20 years and he is still of the same power and range as Angel as Retribution.  As one goes deeper in, the songs continue to gain strength.  “Invincible Shield” didn’t really jump out at first, but does now with a very Maiden-y outro.  “Devil In Disguise” is another early highlight.  “Crown of Horns”, “Escape From Reality”, “As God is My Witness” are instantly likeable, with hooks aplenty and the odd adventurous lick or detour.  Richie Faulkner has been a godsend to this band, injecting them with new songwriting life, metallic riffs and speedy leads.  Meanwhile, you can hear Glenn Tipton too, illness be damned!  He trades off with Faulkner just as is Priest’s trademark.  The classical guitar solo on “Giants In the Sky” is something completely new for this band and a surprising delight.

Invincible Shield has most of the longer material stacked to the top of the album, with the short songs going on side two.  Even with 14 songs, the album is only just over an hour with bonus tracks, not overstaying its welcome, and inviting to repeated listens.  There’s no point in getting a version of this album without the bonus tracks.  You’d be missing out.  You can get them at Target, Sunrise, or Amazon in Canada.  They are “Fight Of Your Life”, “Vicious Circle” and “The Lodger”.  “Fight Of Your Life” might be the most necessary song of the album, as it really hearkens back to the early 70s albums like Sin After Sin.  It could be the deep cut of the record.

Lyrics have always been a shaky point in Priest history, and there are some cringey ones on Invincible Shield, but I doubt they will impede anyone’s enjoyment of this album.  It has summer written all over it, as we await the coming of the sun and the highway months.

Production by Andy Sneap sounds great to these ears, with Ian Hill’s bass rich and deep, and Scott Travis’ drums livelier than ever.  There are flashes back to the 70s and 80s, and some of Priest’s highest peaks of the past.

Martin Popoff may be right, but I’m not going as far as he did.  Still…

Album of the year.

5/5 stars

#1104: We Don’t Need No, No No No, Parental Guidance Here

RECORD STORE TALES #1104:
We Don’t Need No, No No No, Parental Guidance Here

In our house, we always had the utmost support.  It didn’t matter if my parents liked the music.  Like it or not, they provided it in spades.

My dad fully enabled my early John Williams addiction.  I had a good collection of Star Wars and Indiana Jones music.  The only way for me to listen to them was on the big family stereo in the living room.  My parents had a good pair of headphones, so noise wasn’t an issue.  There I would lay, my Star Wars toys scattered about, as I read the liner notes to  The Empire Strikes Back, LP spinning at 33 1/3 rpm on the turntable behind me.

Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change, and in 1984 change was afoot.  Star Wars could not last forever without films to sustain it, and the Kenner action figures were scraping the bottom of the barrel for Ewoks, and other creatures with mere seconds of screen time.  It was, for all intents and purposes for this child, over.

Enter Bob Schipper.  December 26, 1984.  The album was called Masters Of Metal Volume II.

My exposure to music up to that point had been pretty mainstream.  There was an earlier dalliance with AC/DC’s “Big Balls” and some “Mr. Roboto” by Styx earlier, but otherwise I only knew John Williams and whatever MuchMusic was playing those days.  Billy Ocean’s “Loverboy” was a big one.  (The rock connection there was production by Robert John “Mutt” Lange.)  I had Michael Jackson and Culture Club cassettes, but neither were played beyond the big singles.  I loathed slow songs.  I spotted John Fogerty’s “The Old Man Down the Road” and thought it was pretty cool.  My biggest dip into heavy metal to date was Quiet Riot, but that day in 1984 changed the course of my life.

Suddenly the vacuum was filled by Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, W.A.S.P., Motley Crue, Helix, Lee Aaron, Triumph, and Kiss.  Especially Kiss.

So what did my parents do?  They bought me some of my first music cassettes. Powerslave, Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge, Asylum, Condition Critical, and all those seminal albums that shaped my first year as a real music fanatic.  Just as I was obsessed with Star Wars and collecting, now I had a new focus and I was on it like a laser.  My earliest purchases in the field of rock music were magazines:  Faces, and Hit Parader.  I had a Faces Kiss special, catching me up on all the essential facts into 1985.  (Interestingly, the Faces special talked of the next studio album, which was to be followed by Alive III, they said.)  I taped all the music videos off the Pepsi Power Hour like a maniac, soaking up everything I could that wasn’t too scary.  (Venom were scary.  So was Motorhead.)

My parents relinquished control of the VCR to me during the Pepsi Power Hour broadcast time.  5:00 PM, one day a week and then later on, two days a week.  This was seemingly set in stone.  The basement gradually became a music den for me, and Bob Schipper would join me as often as possible as we watched all the latest music I had captured on magnetic tape.  Bob would offer his opinions, pro and con.  We didn’t always agree.  He loved Skid Row, and I was more into Badlands.  He was early on to D-A-D, but didn’t really get what I loved about Savatage.

Whatever demons and dragons were on the covers of the albums I wanted, my parents would buy them for me.  Whether Ozzy was dressed as a priest on the sleeve, or if a guy in a metal mask was being held in a psych ward, they bought the albums.  They never said no.  They never blinked at titles such as Live After Death or Screaming For Vengeance.  I remember my mom once asked me if it was true that AC/DC stood for “Anti-Christ/Devil-Child”.  I kind of laughed.  She let it go.  I think my mom knew how silly all those stories about “satanism in music” really were.  It always seemed so far-fetched, and far removed from the songs I was enjoying in the basement with Bob.

His parents were pretty much the same, except he was older and had to buy his own tapes.  They didn’t mind the shirtless Vince Neil poster on his wall.  Me, I just wondered if he really had a crossbow launcher on his right gauntlet.

A lot of these rock stars looked like wrestlers or apocalyptic warriors from Mad Max.  All these influences poured together in a potpourri of hard rock and heavy metal bands, marketed through the TV and magazines that I was consuming, to appeal to my age group.  I was the target demographic, and it was working.  There’s nothing particularly “evil” about that.  That’s the world of capitalism that I was born into, and that record label executives hitched their wagons to.  I suppose my mom had probably endured something similar when she was a young Beatles and Elvis fan.  Her younger brother, my Uncle Don Don, had Led Zeppelin records.  I was just listening to the next generation of rock down the line.

My parents’ support reached its zenith in 2021, when they bought me the Judas Priest box set, 50 Heavy Metal Years of Music.  Easily the biggest music gift I ever received, it just proved how far they’d go to enable my musical habits.  They don’t understand it, but they support it.  That’s a pretty amazing thing, isn’t it?

 

#1061: Musical Flashbacks and Flame Throwers (VIDEO)

RECORD STORE TALES #1061: Musical Flashbacks and Flame Throwers

I know how to pick the tunes.

Trip up:  Of course, it had to be High Noon by the Arkells.  Had to be.  That album has become too important to me.  And so we played and I sang along, and really struggled and failed to hit the one “ooo ooo ooo” in “Never Thought That This Could Happen”.  One of many signs of my aging body this weekend.

Three day weekends are really special.  Sure, we didn’t get to finish everything we wanted to.  But we did have fun.  For the first time, we checked out a local shop called the Beef Way.  We picked up a delicious tomahawk steak and some apple pie jam.  Highly recommended.  We are all done with Robert’s Boxed Meats in Kitchener.  For the second time, he sold us steak that had gone bad.  Never again, Robert!  Beef Way has our money now.  Guy was super helpful.

When we arrived on the front porch, it was all about the music once again.  I captured some on video for you to enjoy, and I hope it gives you that “being there” feeling.  The idea this weekend was, once again, to travel back in time.  Listening to albums in the place I first heard them:  the cottage.  Priest…Live!  Misplaced Childhood by Marillion.  White Lion’s Big Game (who Jen understandably confused with Bon Jovi).  This time it just made me glow.

The biggest deal about this weekend was the unprecedented spotting of wildlife!  I managed to capture all of it either on photo or video.  There was a beefy raccoon.  We had a turkey.  There was a beautiful skunk.  Best of all, our fearless little chipmunk friend returned to visit us on both front and back porches.  On Saturday we had a Lego session, and he came right out to help.

A word about Lego:  It sure has changed a lot since we were kids.  Now there are angles for every degree and orientation, slopes we never had before, lots of pieces that have both right and left-handed counterparts, and building techniques that involve going sideways just as often as upwards.  It was challenging for both of us.  But we’re both making progress!  And I thought we’d be done in a weekend….

If YouTube allows the music, then check out my picks.

2023 is off to a banging start!

Sunday Chuckle: And Jen Couldn’t Give A Crap (tribute to Judas Priest)

You’re on the run from the stun of the flame thrower! AIR GUITAR!

50 Years of Heavy Metal Music, disc by disc, with Mike, Harrison and John T. Snow

We went a bit overtime this week, but for good reason.  It takes that long to have a serious discussion about Judas Priest‘s box set 50 Heavy Metal Years of Music.  Harrison and I both dissected our copies while John T. Snow went through his Complete Albums Collection set, which was anything but!  We also took a look at the Rob Halford action figure by Super 7, and gave our favourite tracks from each studio album.  When we got to the bonus live albums at the end, the Australian Wunderkind told us what’s what.

We also discussed all the flaws with the box set, and what has been done to remedy some of them.

As far as “Ask Harrison” goes, California Girl wanted to know about Fleetwood Mac, and gave Christine McVie’s “Songbird” some praise.  Meanwhile Tee Bone had something he’s always been meaning to ask Harrison about Australia!

Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Friday night!  

Friday Night and the Priest is Back! Grab a Stack of Box Sets with Mike, the Mad Metal Man, and 2loud2oldmusic!

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK…with Mike and the Mad Metal Man
Episode 6: Special guest John T. Snow 

Harrison the Mad Metal Man recently acquired Judas Priest‘s box set 50 Heavy Metal Years of Music.  It so happens that Mike also owns 50 Heavy Metal Years of Music.  Since John Snow has his own Judas Priest box set, we thought we’d show off our Priest tonight.  For the first time ever, Harrison and I will break down the full box set item by item.  Additionally we will give you our favourite and least favourite song from each album.  I will also run through every flaw with the discs (and there are a few).

Joining us tonight for “Ask Harrison” will be California Girl and Tee Bone, with some fresh queries for the Australian Madman.  Since he won’t tell us what shampoo he uses to get his hair silky smooth, California Girl is trying a different topic.  Meanwhile Tee Bone has something for Harrison that he always wanted to know!

Tune in tonight LIVE for all the fun.

Friday December 9 at 7:00 P.M. E.S.T. Enjoy on YouTube or on Facebook.

#992: Long Weekend of The Lizard, Water, and the Scales of Justice

RECORD STORE TALES #992: Long Weekend of Lizards, Water, and Max

We rolled in Thursday night and it was so hot that we cranked open all the windows.  And that was it with any kind of warmth!  The rest of the weekend was cold, windy and required long sleeves!  Regardless of the hot and cold reception we received, I watched Brent Jensen and Alex Huard discuss Appetite for Destruction on Thursday Night Record Club outdoors as planned.

The music on the road up was, as always, good!  We started with Saigon Kick’s The Lizard, in anticipation of Friday night’s big interview.  It was tremendous fun to listen to such a great album, 30 years young, in the car.  Upon conclusion we played a tape of Max the Axe’s first gig with the present lineup, recorded August 4 2017.  Five years of Meat, Dave, Mitch and Max creating music together.  While the years have made them better, the live cassette of the first gig is good enough that we hope it will form the basis of their first live album.  The setlist consisted of eight tracks from the then-unrecorded Status Electric album, a Black Flag cover later finalized for Oktoberfest Cheer, and the Max classic “I Don’t Advocate Drugs” with Meat singing lead for the first time.

All Friday and Saturday, music took over the cold front porch.  It is hard to type with frozen fingers.  I am working on a major Kiss project that I will not reveal yet, but in preparation I played a ton of old Kiss on the porch.  Lick It Up, Creatures of the Night, Hotter Than Hell, Paul’s solo album, and plenty more.  When the Kiss was concluded, I moved on to Judas Priest (Point of Entry).  As always, it was a magical retro soundtrack that acted as a mental time machine.  I would have been playing those same albums back in ’87-’88.  The big difference being – I was stuck in my room!  Now the porch is my room.

One thing for certain. I would have loved it if I had the technology to do stop motion animation in 1987. All I had were my Transformers toys, comic books and imagination. Now I have that plus cameras and computers. I spent several hours working on animation. Let’s face it: It’s just an excuse to play with toys as an adult!  There’s nothing wrong with that and it was damn fun, especially with Judas Priest blasting in the background just like they would have in the 80s.

Saturday night we went for some nice walks and I shared stories of the old days.  No phones, no cable, no digital music back then.  The only way to was to haul all my physical music, and associated players, up to the lake to enjoy.  And enjoy we did.  Nothing has changed there except convenience and sound quality.  Playing the music that I bought at the cottage originally sure brings the memories back.  White Lion’s Big Game and Jon Bon Jovi’s Blaze of Glory were two such albums that I spun again in the old original setting.  I bought ’em both in Kincardine on cassette.  Hanging out with Bob Schipper and picking our favourite new tunes…great memories!  I remember putting the sticker for the JBJ cassette on the bottom of the top bunkbed.  Jen and I talked a lot, and perhaps there’s a number of stories there to tell in the future.

Three days came and went as quickly as a cool summer breeze.  All I have left now are the photos and videos to keep the memories fresh.  You can watch them now too, all edited together to the sound of a new remix of “Scales of Justice” by Max the Axe!  I think it’s the best cottage video I’ve ever made.  What more could you want?

#987: The Summer Awakens

RECORD STORE TALES #987: The Summer Awakens

It’s official:  the earliest swim on record for any summer at the lake is May 13!  If you don’t believe in global warming, then I can tell you that past weekends in early May, we were snuggled up in jackets and long pants.  This year, early May was as warm as early July used to be.  What an incredible weekend.  Clear and sunny until late Saturday.  By then we were indoors waiting for the Toronto Maple Leafs to once again exit the playoffs in the first round.  But I’m jumping head of myself!

Traffic was light but the music was heavy.  Albums for the drive up:

As expected, both were awesome on the road.  There was no clear winner.  Interestingly, Jennifer liked “Roots In My Boots” by Scorpions, which I considered a bit of a throwaway.  Regardless, both albums did well on the highway and rocked us safely to the cottage in two hours.

First music on the porch:

  • Kathryn Ladano – Open

Not a new release, but since the good Doctor was next door, it felt right to serenade her with some of her best music!

From there we settled in with the first hot dogs of the year, and I began to prep for my show that night (Top 11 Star Wars movies) by watching The Phantom Menace.  10 years ago, the only way to do that would be to bring a DVD and watch it on the laptop.  If we wanted to watch a Star Wars movie 30 years ago, we needed to bring the tape and a VCR!  Everything is so easy now, but dependent on a good internet connection.  That connection enabled me to do the first cottage show of the year, and a success it was.  I experimented with some new lighting and it worked way better than last year after sundown.  A successful show — and one of the best we’ve ever done.   Certainly one of my favourites.

It’s always hard to sleep after a caffeinated show like that.  I got four or five hours, and was up and at ’em early Saturday.  It was so quiet.  Most cottagers have not opened yet — their loss!  They were not able to listen when I rocked Kiss on the front porch on Saturday.  Kiss albums this weekend included Dynasty, Kiss, Hotter Than Hell, Peter Criss, and Rock and Roll Over.

I made fish for breakfast (trout) and went to go pick up my new bass from neighbor Donna.  Her brother was Don Simmons of Helix, and this bass used to belong to him.  It is my honour to play it on the porch in his memory.  Although I use the word “play” very loosely.  I have never played bass before and can only “barely” play guitar as it is.  It took some time to get used to the size of the body.  Even the neck felt huge.  But it sounded great and really rumbled the porch.

I made chicken and steaks on the barbecue and burned up a bunch of old wood — without losing my glasses this time.  After being on my feet all day Saturday, I took it easy in the evening, missing the bright orange sunset.  I had been on my feet all day and it felt good to rest up in the evening.

We departed for home early Sunday.  Albums for the road home:

These albums, Priest especially, gave me some serious retro vibes, as if I had stepped into a time machine and was 16 again.  I had this happen numerous times last year, and I wrote about that feeling in multiple previous chapters.  It’s a very intense feeling, as if I was no longer living in the year 2022, but had stepped into 1987 again.  It felt as real as the steering wheel in my hands.  Looks like this summer will be no different.  Lots of flashbacks in store!

An excellent start to what I hope will be an amazing year.