JUDAS PRIEST

Invincible Shield (Columbia)

Judas Priest have thrown a few curveballs during their half-century recording albums, but don’t typically do red herrings: any given LP, Invincible Shield being their 19th, ensnares a sound and nails it. Mind, when Panic Attack opens proceedings with bombastic synth and gated drums, you’re steeled – so to speak – for a return to the divisive mid-80s coke-rock sound of Priest’s Turbo. It’s shortlived, though, as the Midlands metal institution snap back into regal riff majesty and stick with it for the subsequent 10 songs.

Invincible Shield is a remarkably good album: bushy-tailed, limber and acutely aware of what makes Judas Priest an epochal band. So along with quasi-ballads Crown Of Horns and an (honestly quite affecting) 60s pop-styled cutaway moment on Giants In The Sky, the current-day quintet let you know that they know they blueprinted both power metal and speed metal with, especially, Trial By Fire and the blistering As God Is My Witness.

words NOEL GARDNER