Judas Priest - Nostradamus - 2008 (iTunes - Amazon)
I'm not sure what to make of this. The first track of Nostradamus, "Dawn of Creation", opens with strings, pianos, moody wind effects and then a keyboard track that reminds of the soundtrack for Halloween. But that's really just a 2.5 minute overture. When "Prophecy" starts you know you are in some kind of Heavy Metal...something.
"I am Nostradamus, do you believe?" Oh, this is turgid.
Why? I have to ask, why? Who needed a 2 hour rock opera concept album about Nostradamus???? From what I've read, this stuff's been covered already. And even if it hadn't, why now? Why so...pedestrian? And Why? So? Much?????
Ugh.
To be fair, some of the tracks aren't that bad. The lyrics to "Revelations" may be mediocre and on the nose, but the operatic, almost cinematic quality of the production sort of lifts it, while shoving, for some reason, Rob Halford's vocal as deep into the mix as possible and still render it recognizable.
With it's slight interludes that call to mind a pedestrian and pedantic church service of sadness and gloom, Priest really think their making great art here. And I admire them for the attempt.
Thing is, the last thing these guys were known for was wordsmithing and lyrics. It's gotta suck to be Halford in that respect. His voice is admirable and his writing talent has always been suspect. The sound, the fury, the dual guitar attack of Tipton and Downing, the voice and sheer will is what made Priest, is what carved their names into the marble of this musical movement. And, so to hear them attempt such heights and fail so defiantly is sad, comical and, sometimes, as on, say, "War", inspiring a bit. If it does sound a LOT like a Lord of the Rings soundtrack instead of a Metal album.
Except where the lyrics are in Italian and it's a full on Wagnerian Opera. Only in Italian. As on "Pestilence & Plague" What the hell am I listening to, again?
The entire first half seems to be devoted to Nossy's predictions. Now, I don't know about you, but when I predict something it's more along the lines of, "Hmm...I think the Mets are going to tank this year." But in the hands of Halford & Co. it's more like, "Besmirch me not, my lord! The grand Metropolitans of York of Newness shall be vanquished in a spasm of strangulation the likes of which ne'er seen lo these many moon! Oh, fie!"
Or something.
It's fully 45 minutes before anything remotely resembling Priest as we know them shows up in the last song of the firs Act (!!!), a track called Persecution. So, I guess, Nostro has been determined to be some kind of heretic and is going to be locked up. I guess. I don't know. I just see the end in sight...... (For the record, I don't know if this is something to be proud of, in awe of, or what, but the entire first act, all of it, is stitched together as one. long. track. Suck on that, Queen.
End Act One
Act Two (oh, jeez......)
Act Two opens with Nossy exiled.
Great. Got it.
Oh, wait, you need 7 minutes to get that point across, JP? Okay. I'll be back.
Oh, you DON'T really need 7 minutes, it only took you three. The other 4 are needless and sub-par instrumentation. Got it. How badly do you guys want to score the next Underworld Movie??
Only 40 minutes to go. The next 7 will be spent on a song titled, Alone. So, it's gonna take 7 minutes to convey how Nostradamus felt when he was exiled. All right.
While this is playing I'll say this: In the early 80's there was a mini-series on German Television called Berlin Alexanderplatz. It's a 14 part series by Fassbinder. We never saw it, my friends or I. But, whenever we experienced something that was inteminably boring and long we would create a new portmanteau for it. A dull lecture was "Berlin Alexanderlecture". A boring book could be "Berlin Alexandertome". A boring movie would be "Berlin Alexanderplatz". Gotcha!
So, now I can just call a boring book "Nostradabook".
I've decided that this entry should be the longest since I am making myself sit through a near-two irony free, humorless, quasi-concept album.
For you.
FOR YOU! So YOU don't have to do it.
Sure, you might think, one day, "hmmm...I wonder how that last Priest Album was. I mean, Angel of Retribution was pretty good. And I like good metal. I wonder...."
I do this for You! So you can know. So, you can enjoy every moment of your life and not lose an hour and a half that you will never get back!
Shit. Please, fucking end!
30 minutes to go.
Oh, this isn't bad. This Visions track. At least it's...I dunno...a song?
Then there's this elegiac hope message 20 minutes before the end and I'm thinking, "Why am I not drinking? Why am I sitting here when I could be laying in bed, next to my wife, sleeping?"
Ugh. 20 minutes to go. Feels like forever.
What?
It takes us til the penultimate song to get to some real rockin' metal? Nostradamus, the song, is a big thrash metal song that is at once ridiculous and, at the same time, should have just been one track on some other record that didn't include 1.5 hours of turgid, quasi epic balladry.
The album ends, as it probably must, with mankind moving forward but with the gift of Nostradamus's prophecies to guide us. (Props for ending in the proper french, Nossy's native tongue. The guys did their homework)
Okay.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Judas Priest.
Grade D+
A Side: Revelations, Nostradamus,
BlindSide: War, Persecution
DownSide: Sands of Time, Death
1 comment:
If you expected a regular priest album then you are going to be thrown a bit.... I didnt and thought this album as a sidetrack experimental thing. The one thing I thought that would have helped was they should have taken Jon lord on to help compose and play keyboard instead of Airey. If someone wants to make a metal-classical mix string quartets work way better than a symphonic sound and can be melded with metal a lot better - just playing the songs with a symphony that plays a basic melody along with the band doesnt go over well-I think metallica proved that with their poor attempt of working with a symphony. The song Diary Of A Madman by Ozzy/Rhoads has a great string quartet playing a part in it even yjough it could have been more forward in the mix. As for eveyone else Deep Purple played a whole album with a symphony back in 1969 and then again in the nineties and was entirely composed by Jon Lord and although its old and not incredible they were the first ones to try it- and again it would have been better with a string quartet or octet instead of an entire symphony. -Crypt
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