THE PRIEST IS BACK. Judas Priest, the godfathers of heavy metal and in my humble opinion the greatest fucking metal band ever to walk the face of this pathetic planet, have returned with probably the greatest slab of live, molten, raging, ass kicking metal you are ever likely to hear. Put away your Korn and Limp bizshit cd’s and make way for some true,fist fucking heavy metal. When Rob ‘the god’ Halford departed, priest seemed to have retreated into their shell, but they have returned, screaming for vengeance, with a new and hungry for blood vocalist, Tim ‘ripper’ Owens. This album is a combo of various live shows pieced together to give the whole thing a seamless feel. If you want REAL heavy metal then this is the cd for you. It consists of their most mind blowing songs stretched over 2 cd’s The album starts of with the hellion/electric eye, and you can hear the crowd chanting priest, priest over and over again. Priest burst onto stage and the crowd goes ape shit, singing along to every word with Ripper . Classic after classic priest tunes rain on the crowd like molten metal straight from the bowels of hell. They are all here, grinder, metal gods, rapid fire, the ripper, the sentinel and done with a passion you will rarely see anywhere in the metal world, and to think that glen tipton, k.k.downing and ian hill are at the ripe old age of 50 plus. Although the jugulator album was probably not one of their best, the tracks from that cd absolutely kill live. Check out ‘blood stained’ and ‘burn in hell’ for totally ball busting metal that will snap your neck in two. By the time priest begin the opening strains of the immortal classic ‘beyond the realms of death’, you feel like you have attained metal salvation. Beyond the realms is done with such power that you really begin to feel what a crappy life we all live in The real highlight of the show is probably the amazing acoustic rendition of the classic Diamonds and rust. Ripper screams his lungs out as if his very soul depended on it, bringing tears to our eyes. In fact ripper kicks ass on just about every song, singing them to perfection and the scream at the end of Victim of changes will make your hair stand on ends. Scott travis is like a machine playing utterly flawlessly throughout with Ian hill, probably one of the most underrated bassists of all time, backing him to the core. Glen and K.K belt out riffs and solos that will make any guitarist fall to his knees in worship Priest end the show with face ripping versions of ‘painkiller, hell bent for leather and breaking the law’, that will have you head banging till u experience whiplash, as well as ‘living after midnight’ and ‘you’ve got another thing coming’ which are done much heavier than before and let me tell you that nothing beats listening to these two tracks with a bunch of friends and some ice cold beer. However the cd ends the way it began, with the crowd chanting priest,priest,priest . Priest have outlasted all trends and have been together for an amazing 30 years making them the longest surviving metal band of all time inspiring and influencing thousands and thousands of other bands. For long time priest fans, this is a cd you should treasure for all eternity and for the uninitiated this a lesson in what true metal is all about. Priest are and always will be THE ultimate heavy metal band and will keep flying the flag for heavy metal forever I’m racing out to glory, there’s thunder in my veins, and nothing stands before me, forever I’ll remain. HARD AS IRON.