matzaballman's Full Review: Jugulator by Judas Priest
When this album first came out in 1997, I immediately knew I was not going to like it just by glancing at the song titles....Jugulator, Blood Stained, Dead Meat, Death Row, Decapitate, Burn In Hell, Brain Dead, Abductors, Bullet Train, Cathedral Spires. It's like Judas Priest were watching too many monster and slasher flicks and spending too much time visiting slaughter houses. And notice how none of the song titles have more than three words in them? From the very beginning, JP have always tried to have cool or neat, tough sounding song titles. When I heard the lead off single, Bullet Train, I knew that this one Judas Priest album I should avoid. I was working at a CD store at the time, and being that I am a huge Judas Priest fan, I still decided to give the album a listen. And unfortunately, I was right, I did not like the album and indeed avoided it like the plague for years! This was JP continuing on with the speed metal of PainKiller, but turning it up several notches and combining it with Metallica and whatever type of heavy metal groups were popular and/or considered hip at the time, while dumbing down their lyrics even more, which at the time I did not think was possible!! (At least there are no rock anthems here...I guess that would be a good thing!) It is an aggressive, ferocious, gloomy, depressing album, with barely any catchy guitar riffs and barely any melody, either. And very few, if any, memorable guitar solos.
I'll give it this, it may be the most consistent JP album in terms of tone, mood, atmosphere, song structure and arrangements. Consistently BAD, I mean. So many of these songs sound alike that the whole album sounds like one sixty minute song, and a very unpleasant one at that. Even the album cover is not fun to look at. It is another cartoon cover depicting the most evil and frightening looking monster to ever (dis)grace a JP cover.
After avoiding this album for so many years and after reading Martin Popoff's book on Judas Priest entitled Judas Priest:Heavy Metal Painkillers, I decided to actually purchase Jugulator and give it another listen. I put this CD on in the kitchen while I was washing dishes and playing online Scrabble and had to admit that I didn't hate it as much as I thought it would. I mean, I still don't like it, but the nicest thing I can say about it is that I have heard albums that I hate much more. The intro to the title track is kind of interesting, with it's factory sounds and I can actually tolerate the song until the tempo speeds up...and how!!! That Scott Travis can really play them drums and is a master of playing the double bass drum, even though he plays almost the same jack-hammer rhythm for nearly every song. Oh yes and there are one or two guitar solos, where Tipton and/or Downing play wicked fast, but unfortunately say very little, other than that they can play fast.
Unfortunately, as I stated earlier and will say again, nearly every song sounds like the opening track. Almost every tune starts off with a scary intro (I think one song, Dead Meat, starts off with a growling animal) with watered down guitars, then it gets really fast and Owens screams and howls his way through the rest of the song. I find myself barely able to sit through any song all the way through. To me, the album's most interesting track is Burn In Hell. I really like the guitar riff for the intro and wish they built the entire song around it. It's the only catchy and memorable part of the entire album and is the only place where Ian Hill's bass playing is audible. They get some interesting drum patterns going on around the riff, which I have not been able to get out of my head this past week. Sadly, they almost completely abandon this riff around the three minute mark and get loud and fast again. Crappy song writing, in my epinion. They should have known a good guitar riff when they wrote one.
The lowest point on the album is the intro to Death Row, which contains an unintentionally funny monologue, supposedly courtesy of guitarist Glenn Tipton, who is responsible for all the blood stained lyrics. If only these dudes didn't take themselves so seriously!
Tim (The Ripper) Owens, at least to my ears, sounds like a cross between Freddy Kreuger and James Hetfield, and Rob Halford on his higher notes and on his screams (which are impressive, I must admit). Can he sing? Definitely. He has an amazing vocal range and I would love to hear him sing older JP songs. Too bad he is given such forgettable vocal lines to sing here.Do I like his voice? Not really, but maybe that is because he is given such weak material to sing.
I'll give JP credit, with song titles that only a mass murderer could love, you can't exactly accuse of them of selling out on this! The album has good timing and long songs. Clocking in at over nine minutes, the last tune, Cathedral Spires, was the longest song JP had recorded up to that point. But, if you want melodies, intelligent lyrics, catchy guitar riffs, good songs, good music, memorable guitar solos,etc..., then do not buy this album!!
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