Quick Take: Invincible Shield - Judas Priest
In the 80s, one of my close friends, Bert1, was a huge Judas Priest fan. It was his favorite band by a mile, he had the shirts, the posters, the swag, all of it. My favorite band at the time was Def Leppard (and still is, to be honest). Bert was always trying to get me into Priest, hand-picking songs for me to listen to. He even lent me his cassette of Turbo, probably because he felt it sounded too much like Def Leppard. I thought Turbo was pretty good, but it didn’t really get me hooked on the band.
Short story: In middle school (called Junior High back then) Bert and I were in drafting class together. One of the fun projects we had was to make a logo of some kind using drafting tools. Everyone ended up making logos of their favorite bands, of course. There was AC/DC and Led Zepplin as you’d expect. I, naturally, did Def Leppard and Bert did Judas Priest. The class voted on the best design which would get silk-screened onto t-shirts. My Def Leppard design won (it probably wasn’t the best design, but I think I did the best job of rounding up votes), although sadly I no longer have that shirt.
Later, I loved Touch of Evil on Painkiller and even went to see Judas Priest in concert (in a rather harrowing drive in the snow from Lewiston to Portland) around 1990/1991.
After that concert I bought The Essential Judas Priest on CD and it got me to appreciate them even more, especially their back catalog. Unfortunately Rob Halford left the band around this time. I kept tabs on JP and eventually came to love Painkiller, Turbo2 and Defenders of the Faith. Like everyone else, I was excited when Rob came came back with Angel of Retribution.
Although these newer albums had a few songs I liked, it wasn’t until Firepower in 2018 that I really found another Judas Priest album that I loved.
Now four years later, Judas Priest released their most recent album, Invincible Shield and long story short, it is amazing.
My favorites are Panic Attack, which is a great anthem for our times, the title track, Gates of Hell, Crown of Horns and Trial by Fire. All of the other songs are also really good and overall, I think this album is better than Firepower.
I also really like the bonus tracks of Fight of Your Life and Vicious Circle.
You should listen to this album, the louder the better.
So after all this time, I can say “Bert was right.” Judas Priest is one of the best metal bands ever.
I now rank my top 5 Judas Priest albums as follows:
Painkiller
Invincible Shield
Turbo
Firepower
Defenders of the Faith
Bert was also the best man at my wedding.
Yes, I do love Turbo. There are some great, catchy songs on that one.