After the sour reaction to the previous album, ‘Jugulator’, Priest tried to determine what went wrong. It was a myriad of things, but most importantly was due to the departure of the much loved Rob Halford and then completely changing your sound and abandoning everything that Judas Priest was known for in its sound. It is pretty simple actually. They tried to rectify one of those things as Rob was still not in the band. The lead singer for his second album with the band was Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens. The end result was the album ‘Demolition’ which was released on July 16, 2001 and did even worse then the previous album. It only charted at #165 on the US Billboard charts.
However, the album is way better than the reception it received. The band still consisted of K.K. Downing, Glenn Tipton, Ian Hill and Scott Travis along with Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens and this time around they went back to a more Priest sound which was a little less heavy and a lot more melodic. They did modernize the sound by adding some nu-metal / industrial elements while still maintaining a lot of what Priest fans loved. This was a much more accessible album and one I find to be way better than the previous one. Dare I say, I really like this album, but it still doesn’t completely feel like a Priest album. It is a step in the right direction.
The opening track “Machine Man” sadly doesn’t really stray too far from the previous album. It is pretty brutal and heavy. It is one of the songs on the album that actually garnered Priest with their first Parental Advisory Sticker on an album due to the language. The guitar playing on this is pretty lethal and the combo of Tipton and Downing again shows how great this band is with those two. And not to be outdone, Travis’ drumming is totally maddening and still can’t figure out how he can drum that fast…it is crazy nuts. But I don’t completely hate it despite it’s resemblance to the prior album. Tim’s singing is better and more melodic at times and at least it had a decent chorus.
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