Halford
Live Insurrection (Metal-Is)
by Martin Popoff
The tour that produced this album was quite a magic metal moment, to use the parlance of the erudite but elusive and somewhat patronizing Mr. Halford. Out traipsing the globe with Maiden, and variously Entombed, Queensrÿche, and on his own, Halford dug deep into the Priest catalogue, whipped out a bit o’ Fight and played much of the obvious, safe but satisfying Resurrection album. But this goes way farther than the show I saw, Metal-Is packing two CDs full of everything the true fan would want, including compact new studio track,”Screaming In The Dark,” re-recordings of two old and unfinished Priest dogs from the ’80s (they don’t date well), the duet with Bruce, a live version of the raging Japanese bonus track, and as I say, a deep-knife plunge into three of four of the man’s bands.
His soldiers are spot on (although the liner notes admit to doctoring), and you can feel the electricity of this man on a mission, as well as the greater electricity of his ravenous backing band, especially that pin-prick precise rhythm section. One thing I’m not thrilled with here is the hysterically high key of a lot of these vocals: Maybe he’s comfortable up there, but I pinch my butt cheeks listening to dog-whistle shriekfests like “Resurrection,” “Light Comes Out of Black” and the aforementioned “Screaming In The Dark.” Somehow the old Priest stuff contains more pleasurable vocals, shafts of light emanating from tunes like “Electric Eye,” “Breaking The Law” (could do without the Bruce-style oh-oh-ohs though) and, of course, “Metal Gods.” Each is a true cornerstone of metal history, much more tear-inducing than anything Maiden could muster dogpaddling through Brave New World 45 minutes later.
(www.robhalford.com)