Artist: Halford
Title: “Metal God Essentials” Vol. 1 (with bonus DVD)
Label: Metal God Entertainment
Release Date: 9/25/2007
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 4/5
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
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