I'm not saying it's Richie's fault or his doing in anyway, but I'm just saying the amount of solos he gets is annoying to me, espeically when IMO they are not up to the standard of what we know from Priest. I know Glenn obviously would have told him to take the solos he does, but for me I don't understand this mentallity when Glenn has been the main sound behind most of their material. I know it's probably an age thing for Glenn because some of his solos here are a bit rough, but for me, Richie doesn't sound like Priest.
I don't hate the guy because he's not KK, if you look at some of my fav albums, there's quite a few done without key members of the group, so replacements are an issue for me. Richie made me dislike him for his live work and annoying fills in every single song after every single of every song. He needed to play the songs how they have been played for 30 odd years, adding crap pentatonic fills don't add anything to the old material.
I will come back to this album at a later date when perhaps I'm a bit more open to it.