:: Halford - Metal God Essentials Vol. 1

Halford

Having reunited once again with the almighty Judas Priest after a lengthy decade apart, and having since delivered both a reunion album, lead vocalist Rob Halford has once again used the downtown with the main group to focus on his own solo career, with the release of ‘Metal God Essentials Vol.1’, Halford’s first release from his own production company Metal God Entertainment. 'Metal God Essentials Vol. 1’ is essentially a best of collection of Halford’s work within both Fight and Halford, but with a remastered sound, a host of previously unreleased tracks and a bonus DVD of productions currently in the works.

From the previously released side of things, Halford offers up nine tracks from his self coined solo band Halford such as ‘Slow Down’, ‘Locked And Loaded’, ‘Resurrection’, ‘Made In Hell’, ‘Screaming In The Dark’, ‘Golgotha’, ‘Crystal’, ‘Sun’ and ‘Trail Of Tears’. On the previously unreleased side of things, there’s the original demo recordings of ‘Into The Pit’, ‘Nailed To The Gun’ and ‘War Of Words’ from Halford’s post Judas Priest outfit Fight, which is followed up with a demo version of ‘Silent Screams’ from 1999, which would eventually turn up on Halford’s comeback album ‘Resurrection’. But curios aside, it’s both ‘Forgotten Generation’ and ‘Drop Out’ that will interest most, with both tracks (including the exclusive Australian only Attie Bauw ‘Vendetta’ remix of ‘Forgotten Generation’) the first new solo material to emerge from Halford in four years.

As for the DVD, Halford offers up promotional video clips for ‘Made In Hell’, ‘Betrayal’, ‘In The Morning’ and ‘Forgotten Generation’, along with a live version ‘Silent Screams’ (from ‘Rock In Rio III’) and the Judas Priest classic ‘Never Satisfied’ (originally from 1974’s ‘Rocka Rolla’, and filmed while on the ‘Crucible’ tour). Also included is behind the scenes look at Halford in the studio recording the vocals for ‘Resurrection’ and the goings on of the band while out on tour for ‘Live Insurrection’. While the DVD is an interesting curio piece, it’s a little too short on delivering the goods to make it truly worthy of dying for, making it a little disappointing.

Overall, ‘Metal God Essentials Vol.1’ is a nice taster of what Halford has in store for fans (including Halford’s upcoming new solo effort), as well as a refresher course of his impressive solo past, which means that there’s more than a little something for everyone here.