Album Review: Judas Priest, Invincible Shield

Continuing the hot streak that started with 2018’s Firepower, these self-ordained metal gods are in biblical form on their 19th album. An incendiary listen that sees Judas Priest in scintillating form, Invincible Shield is a bombastic, often brilliant offering that will buckle your speakers within 6.66 seconds.

Led by the perennially leather-clad Rob Halford, the Brummie legends are in vintage form. In part, that’s thanks to some sterling production from Andy Sneap, and ferocious fretwork from Richie Faulkner who joined in 2011 (‘Invincible Shield’).

Priest’s frontman isn’t found wanting either, with  his legendary pipes full of power on the pulverising ‘Panic Attack’. Catchy and crushing, the hook-laden ‘Gates Of Hell’ and ‘Crown Of Horns’ are equally enthralling, while ‘Giants In The Sky’ is a fitting tribute to their late friends and fellow legends Lemmy and Ronnie James Dio.

Their finest album since the still evergreen Painkiller, Invincible Shield is just what the doctor ordered.

8/10