Jugulator (1997)

Jugulator (1997)

After touring with Pantera and Annihilator in 1991, Rob Halford became more and more drawn to the more aggressive side of heavy metal that was becoming fashionable at the time, and coupled with rising tensions within the band, he did what fans thought would never happen, officially parting ways with the band in 1992. While Halford was driven from the get-go after leaving Priest, forming the groove metal band Fight with Priest drummer Scott Travis — the poor fella was caught in the middle of the two squabbling sides — and releasing the debut album War Of Words in 1993, his former band floundered, putting out the Metal Works ’73-’93 compilation as a stopgap release, Glenn Tipton collaborating with Cozy Powell and John Entwistle on what would eventually become his first solo record.

If Priest wanted to carry on as a band, the remaining members would have to bite the bullet and find a replacement for one of the most distinct and — let’s face it — irreplaceable lead singers in the genre, so in 1996 Tipton, Downing, and Hill took on the mammoth task of auditioning potential new vocalists. Although Gamma Ray’s Ralf Scheepers was a high-profile contender, the band went with a complete unknown, hiring one Tim Owens from Akron, Ohio, after being impressed by his work in his Judas Priest cover band back home. The story quickly became the stuff of legend, interpreted in typically garish Hollywood fashion in the Mark Wahlberg film Rock Star, and you couldn’t help but feel happy for the young singer who was nicknamed “Ripper” by his bandmates. He was getting to live the dream.

However, there was the matter of showing one and all that Judas Priest could still matter without Halford, and one thing 1997’s ludicrously titled album Jugulator proved was that, nope, Judas Priest without Halford was a complete lost cause. Like Iron Maiden’s two albums with Blaze Bayley replacing the great Bruce Dickinson, Judas Priest’s output at the same time tries far too hard to stay relevant, coming across as desperate in the process. It’s no fault of Owens’, as he sings his heart out on the material he’s given, but rather the fault of Tipton and Downing, whose songwriting is lazy, devoid of melody, and mired in the sludgy, down-tuned murk that dominated heavy metal in the 1990s.

With such titles as “Blood Stained,” “Dead Meat,” “Death Row,” “Brain Dead,” “Decapitate,” and “Burn In Hell,” Jugulator is a miserable, joyless experience. Much like Halford’s Fight, Tipton and Downing seem preoccupied with mimicking Pantera (perhaps as a response to Halford who said Priest wasn’t extreme enough for his tastes anymore) than exhibiting mastery of dynamics and theatricality, balancing aggression and melody. The cold, sterile production does these songs no favors, either, making the material sound even more blunt and just plain dumb than it already was. Coming on the heels of the glorious Painkiller, the way this album carries on with its tuneless, hour-long circle jerk is astonishing, not to mention inexcusable.

To find any redeeming qualities in Jugulator is a challenge. “Death Row” is mildly catchy in a Pantera sort of way, while the nine-minute “Cathedral Spires” is the one moment where the songwriting opens up just a crack to allow Owens a little more room to show what he could do. In the end, though, this is a sorry, sorry state of affairs that, to no one’s surprise, tanked commercially, reducing Judas Priest to a mere shadow of its former, glorious self. It’s no wonder the band seems to be quietly burying this album today, because it’s a complete embarrassment. In the late ’90s, metal fans worldwide were thinking, “Help us, Robert John Arthur Halford. You’re our only hope.” But there was still one more Ripper album to slog through yet.