Judas Priest

A Touch of Evil Live

Epic

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Judas Priest’s new live CD, A Touch of Evil Live, is a nice little payoff for diehard fans. The 11 tracks that make up the release are all songs that have not been previously recorded live. This is saying something considering that the band has something like 30 live albums in their career. Not really, they only have five but three of those have come out in the last decade.

All kidding aside the content is a little uneven. The listing has two songs from 2008’s Nostradamus, an ambitious yet uneven release. One could argue that the two selected, “Death” and “Prophecy”, where the wrong ones. Those mistakes are quickly offset with renditions of “Beyond the Realms of Death” and “Eat Me Alive”. One of the supposed highlights is “Painkiller”. The original is a massive Teutonic slab of metal greatness that showed the band incorporating the heavier styles of bands from the early 90’s that were influenced by them. However, singer Ron Halford’s voice sounds horrible on this version.  His attempts of recreating the graveling vocal style sound woefully inadequate and if anyone else would have done this they would be getting mocked. However, in the same song and throughout the whole album his voice still sounds amazing when he sings. A lesson to all the kids out there, if you take care of your voice your voice will take care of you.

Also noteworthy is the drumming of Scott Travis. It was his debut on the Painkiller album that helped to boost their sound and bombast. It is refreshing to see him still having the same effect 15 years later.

While A Touch of Evil Live is a nice attempt of filling in holes for diehard fans. The set is too specific that it comes off like a cash grab than a sincere release.