https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/rob-halford-says-new-judas-priest-album-redeemer-of-souls-is-relentless/On the amount of time it took to put together JUDAS PRIEST's new studio album, "Redeemer Of Souls":
Halford: "Six years has whizzed by, but in that time, of course, we did not only the 'Nostradamus' tour, but the 'Epitaph' tour as well. Then we got into writing mode and made 'Redeemer Of Souls'. So we ain't been hanging out doing nothing."
Tipton: "It's 18 or 19 tracks — I can never remember — so there's a big chunk of work there. But we enjoyed it. It's returning back to the roots of PRIEST. It's classic PRIEST."
Halford: "When we finished 'Epitaph', we just got so buzzed from the fans and the reaction wherever we went. Just to put the 'Epitaph' tour together, which was we tried to put a song from every record into the show, and we were living in the life of JUDAS PRIEST, all those decades, in one show, night after night on the world trek, and I think that really did something to us eternally; as musicians, it should do when you tour. So we realized that this next record really had to be really strong, full of energy, because it's relentless, the tracks are relentless. The energy that you feel off 'Redeemer Of Souls' is replicated in that direction time and time and time again."On whether they still feel good about "Nostradamus" six years after the album's release:
Tipton: "Yeah. [We're] absolutely proud of the album. Yeah, it was a little bit off the wall, and it wasn't quite a small element of people expected from PRIEST, and maybe they would prefer a more PRIEST classic album. But we've done it now, with 'Redeemer Of Souls', a completely classic PRIEST album, and probably the same element will turn around and say, 'I wish they'd tried something a bit different.' So you can't please all of the people all of the time, or some of the people some of the time, whatever that saying is. But we enjoyed writing ['Nostradamus']… A lot of it was done on keyboards, wasn't it?! We wanted to do a concept album. We've always wanted to do something that was a bit different, and we've never been afraid to experiment and try. You never know how it's gonna turn out, but you've gotta try these things and we're very proud of that album. And the small element, again, that said, 'We want more classic PRIEST,' we listened — you've gotta listen to your fans — and that's what we've done now. And you couldn't have a more classic album than 'Redeemer Of Souls'."
Halford: "If you look at bands of longevity, like PRIEST, you see the trail of music that we've left, I don't think we could have probably made as great a record as we have with 'Redeemer Of Souls' if we didn't have 'Nostradamus' as a reference point. It's a stepping stone to the next place. Every record that we've made, we've tried to give it some distinction, some separate identity. 'British Steel' doesn't sound like 'Stained Class', 'Stained Class' doesn't sound like 'Painkiller', 'Painkiller' doesn't sound like 'Defenders Of The Faith'… So I think everything has its place and has its moments, and we've always fed off these different areas that we've gone into with our metal. So thanks to 'Nostradamus', we've got 'Redeemer Of Souls'."On why there are five "bonus" tracks that are included on the deluxe version of the album and do not appear on the CD's regular version:
Tipton: "They are all great songs. The reason they are not on the album is because the 13 that we chose are very consistent with what we wanted to do, which was release an undisputable heavy metal album. The others, they are not lightweight by any chance, but they've got a different feel, a different texture. So it's not a case of trying to rip the kids off and trying to get more money for an extra album, it's just a case of, these five tracks seem to deserve to go on their own CD, and that's what we did."
Halford: "We didn't want to drop the energy. From the opening thunder-and-lightning on 'Dragonaut' right up 'till the end of 'Battle Cry', it's just full-on, it's relentless. It's great."
I hope they don't count the title track as 'relentless', or else they are showing their age. Also, says right there that the bonus tracks will be on a seperate cd, so hopefully we will get a couple of longer numbers.
Also, the term 'classic Priest' is being thrown around a lot, but that term to me really doesn't mean anything because Priest has always changed their sound up from album to album. They have always broken new ground and done new things, so 'classic Priest' doesn't say much to me to be honest.
Classic Priest could mean, Sad Wings, Class, Hell Bent, Steel, Vengeance, Defenders, Painkiller, even Angel to a lesser extent,