In the annals of music history, Judas Priest's lead singer Rob Halford is the Metal God and that is all there is to it. When you proclaim it aloud you will never find argument and when you review his accomplishments both inside and out of the famed group it is easy to understand why this is the case. Halford has been the epitome of a Metal icon for decades and his voice has often been mimicked by the bands that would follow him yet it has never truly been surpassed. The status he holds in the Metal music industry makes a collection/compilation like this something special indeed for it brings us away from the world of Judas Priest and focuses on the prolific solo career that he would have when he chose to leave their ranks several years ago. The collection is also a bit of a milestone for is not only the first of its kind of the singer's solo material but also the debut release of on his self launched Metal God Entertainment label. The material presented on this release covers the Halford releases Resurrection, Crucible and Live Insurrection and even gives you a demo track to enjoy as well as giving the listener new mixes on some of his Fight material. To make it even better there are a couple of new numbers to enjoy as well and the listener will be happy to find that they are just as heavy as they expected music from Halford and his band mates to dish out. There is nothing from the project he did with Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor in Two, but I think that this would have taken away from the heaviness of the overall compilation. This one is a spiked leather gauntlet right at ones skull and when you play it at a certain volume the head banging and the air guitar just comes to you. With Metal God Entertainment Halford's plan is to re-issue all of his solo material and give you not only remastered versions of these albums but to also include bonus tracks that you had only read about in the past. Favorites of mine remain the same as the ones I had when I initially heard them and to name a few I still love "Resurrection", "Made In Hell", and "Nailed To The Gun". There's more of course and it's always hard to find fault on a hits collection of this type. Are there tracks missing that I would have liked to see well of course, but that is why this is labeled at Volume 1, for a second and perhaps third edition is sure to follow if we are lucky
There is a bonus DVD included with the release that while cool in its content it amounts to mostly a teaser of the video output that Halford will eventually be releasing with MGE. The clips show you footage from several videos we had only known of as existing but never been able to purchase for our own. Over the coming months we will finally get the live concert from Rio that was supposed to come out so long ago and the film about life in the band Fight will also finally see the light of day. Given the popularity of music video releases nowadays in terms if the Metal bands I am sure that these will sell in record numbers. I can hardly wait for these as a fan myself. The packaging is nice and while there are a couple of special editions as I am understanding, my own copy is a standard jewel-cased one and includes a booklet with lyrics for all of the songs as well as some great photos of the bands and the Man himself along with some historical liner notes. If you are any kind of Metal fan then you should definitely be grabbing a copy of this one because without the accomplishments of Rob Halford, Metal music might have been a very different place for us today. Raise the horns up high and bow your head in homage ----- The Metal God deserves nothing less from us.
Bonus DVD: Resurrection – Behind The Scenes, Live Insurrection – Behind The Scenes, Made In Hell, Betrayal, In The Morning, Silent Screams, Never Satisfied, Forgotten Generation.
Track Listing
1. Resurrection
2. Made In Hell
3. Screaming In The Dark
4. Golgotha
5. Silent Screams (demo)
6. Crystal
7. Into The Pit
8. Nailed To The Gun
9. Slow Down
10. Locked And Loaded
11. Forgotten Generation
12. Drop Out
13. War Of Words
14. Sun
15. Trail Of Tears
16. Hypocrisy (bonus US mix)
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