Judas Priest - Invincible Shield (2024) {Japanese Blu-Spec CD2, Deluxe Edition} CD-Rip

More than 50 years into their heavy metal legacy, Judas Priest are still screaming at full power on their 19th studio full-length Invincible Shield. The album, their first studio effort of its kind since 2018's Firepower, is again produced by the band's touring guitarist Andy Sneap, and its 14 songs stretch out at over just an hour-long runtime. The album charges out of the gate with the dumbfounding riffery of "Panic Attack." The song touches on all the now-signature elements of Priest's sound, with dizzying harmonic guitar solos, a relentlessly pushy beat, and layers of Rob Halford's vocals, part winking metal theater, part authentic menace. The majority of the album sticks to thrash levels of speed and force, though the band switches gears to fantastical midtempo lurking on the epic "Crown of Horns" and the chugging "Trial by Fire." There's an unexpected acoustic breakdown in "Giants in the Sky" and some bluesy swaggering on the chunky "Fight of Your Life," but by and large Invincible Shield finds Judas Priest delivering a tightly wound and immaculately polished rendering of everything fans have come to expect from them over the last half a century. While at this point there's some unavoidable self-awareness to their craft, it does nothing to take away from the exhilarating fun and lawless excitement of the album. Invincible Shield simply reminds us that this particular kind of excitement is synonymous with Judas Priest.