Will Judas Priest’s New Album Go Down as One of the Greatest Ever?

Musicians almost always say their latest work is their favorite, but Judas Priest's Rob Halford has gone a step further, suggesting that Priest's new 'Redeemer of Souls' album might be an all-time metal classic in waiting.

"There’s a sense of purpose which we definitely have on this record," Halford tells Rock Cellar Magazine. "I think 10 years from now, this will be revered as one of the greatest metal records ever made."

That's a pretty major claim, and one that Halford insists he isn't making lightly. "Just knowing how everything works, it feels that good," he continued. "It was just pouring it out from the heart. And all the skill that Glenn [Tipton] and I have attained in the writing sense over 40 years. And then of course bringing [new guitarist] Richie [Faulkner] on, who is already fully integrated and been a massive fan of the band and knows the songs of Priest. It was just a very simple record to make."

Tipton adds, "People don’t realize that as you write an album, twice as much has probably been discarded because it didn’t click, it didn’t inspire people. Sometimes you get a great idea for a song and you keep working it and working it and at some point the best thing to do is discard it, work on something else," he says, chuckling that "I’ve often played a riff that I think is really good and there’s just stunned silence. ... The best thing to do is put that away, forget about it and move on."

And as Faulkner noted, the members of Priest are on a creative high right now -- to the point that, while working on 'Redeemer,' the songs kept spilling out. "I remember vividly Rob came in one day; he’d come up with a vocal idea. And he said that he was sitting in a traffic jam on the way to the studio, got the idea for the phrase, and put in down on a recorder," he laughed. "So you can imagine sitting in that traffic jam, looking over and doing a double take -- there’s Rob Halford screaming into a recorder."

Watch Judas Priest Talk About the Future