My Sunday Song – “Never the Heroes” by Judas Priest

For My Sunday Song #295, we are go to go through “Never the Heroes” off the band’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Firepower’. The song was the third single and it helped propel the album to a #5 ranking on the Billboard Top 200 albums and showing the band still had a lot of life left in them. It was an album and a song that saw the band return to form and show that metal was still alive and well in their old bones.

The band issued a statement about the song upon its release stating the following:

“‘Never The Heroes’ is about the courageous men and women that enter war, never trained to be heroes but becoming heroic due to their actions and sacrifices doing their duty for their people and country,” the band said in a statement. “It resonates as there is a hero in all of us and in times of struggle we can be strong and united, conquering our own challenges and helping others.”

I don’t think I need to add anything to that so I will just talk about the music.

This is one of the coolest songs on the album, “Never the Heroes”, and also one of my favorite songs, ever, by the band. Their foot comes off the gas with this one only slightly and we get a pure melodic blissful song. It shows the softer side of Priest and Halford’s vocals deliver nothing but greatness. Usually with the pounding drums and guitar, I tend to miss out on Ian’s bass playing, but this one has that deep, low end sound that helps take this one up a notch. But it is the layers of vocals and the harmonies they create in the chorus that takes it over the top. This is a solid hard rock song and shows that those old dogs can still hunt. Priest being the old dog and the hunt being the music if you missed that analogy.

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Judas Priest – ‘Firepower’ (2018) – Album Review (The Complete Albums Collection Series – Bonus Edition)

After the stellar performance of the prior album ‘Redeemer of Souls’ thanks in large part of the addition of Richie Faulkner, the band started work on the next album in 2016. However, it took a long time to finally get to the studios in March of 2017 and the band would go until June to finish the recording. The album then sat for months on months and finally get released on March 9, 2018 where it went on to sell around 49,000 copies in the first week putting it at #5 and their highest chart position. Yeah, 49,000 is a far cry from their heydays, but 49,000 in 2018 for any band is a decent week of sales…oh how things have changed.

But sometimes things to don’t change as the band brought back former producer Tom Allom in to the mix to co-produce the album with Andy Sneap. It had been since 1988’s ‘Ram It Down” as the last time they worked with Allom, so 30 years. That is a long gap. Andy would have such an impact with the band, he would actually go on tour with the band as guitarist. The reason for that was due to some sad news from the camp. The great Glenn Tipton was retiring from touring due to his battle with Parkinson’s Disease. The illness was getting to be too much to play some of the more challenging parts in songs. That doesn’t mean he didn’t pop up on stage every now and again when he felt good enough to play because he did. Glenn is still a member of the band and will still help creatively and in recording. Touring is just too much and too unpredictable on how he’ll feel.

One of the really cool things about this album is the cover art. I remember seeing this and thinking, Damn! That is a cool cover. The next thing I know, there was a filter or something because people started replacing their cover picture on Facebook with their name in Judas Priest Firepower font. It was cool. I didn’t do it though as I was probably too lazy as it seemed like to much work and I didn’t want to be a follower, as I am a leader…no, who am I kidding, it was the laziness part!!

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