Last month, JUDAS PRIEST gave us the first taste of their new album—Firepower—when they unveiled the music video for the appropriately titled “Lightning Strike.” Today, the band has unleashed the album’s title track, and second single. You can hear it below.
Firepower—the band’s eighteenth studio album—was recorded with longtime collaborator Tom Allom and Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, TESTAMENT, EXODUS, ACCEPT). It is set for release March 9. Rob Halford sings about fighting evil in the name of freedom, while the rest of the band, led by guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, commands the sort of chugging riffs that made the group metal avatars in the early eighties, all leading up to emotive, dueling six-string solos as drummer Scott Travis kicks up the tempo.
“Tom Allom has got this classic metal thing,” Halford said in a press release. “And Andy is a bit more of a ‘modern metal producer’ but his thinking is a little bit different to Tom’s. And I think to get this balance between that classic old school metal to what Andy’s world is was just a remarkable coalescence.”
You can preorder Firepower here, and you can also stop by the band’s PledgeMusic page to get your hands on limited-edition collectibles related to the album—such as a metallic silver-colored cassette version of Firepower—which are available now. The band is also gearing up for a North American spring tour in support of Firepower. It will kick off in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on March 13th and wrap in San Antonio, Texas on May 1st.
