review by: Jez Andrews

We can all be misguided when trusting in the words of music journalists. There is a certain weekly magazine here in the UK, for example, whose editorial staff has evidently abandoned their principles, and turned what was once a respectable heavy metal read into a shameless pile of pop shit. And to think there was a time when I took the words of their album reviews as gospel....

So much false hype, so many blind sheep, and so few truths in the music that are universally acknowledged. Who can you trust? Getting to the matter in hand, I'll make it nice and simple. When former Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford was branded the Metal God, it wasn't a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact, and remains so to this day. There is something very admirable about a seasoned musician who can make such a heavyweight contribution to the metal scene after nearly 30 odd years in the business. But then again, the passing of time has simply meant that the man is seeking more in the way of perfection. In his current musical incarnation, Mr. Halford, together with an incredibly talented band, have yet again recorded a masterpiece that gives a nice fresh definition of modern heavy metal.

I was overwhelmed by the gloriously heavy riffing throughout Crucible, combined with a voice that has commanded the highest respect since the early Priest days. It isn't an album that I could dissect track by track, for fear of cheapening it to a level at which I could no longer enjoy it to the full. I could use so many terms to describe the power and intensity that this album projects, but why should you trust me, when you can trust your own ears?