Written by [user id=117337] on 12.11.2011 at 10:03

This album is masterpiece!!!

And btw, it proves again 'never trust the rating'!!!!

Definitely the rating sucks. This is literally the best album any classic metal band has put lately, this and Scorpions' Humanity...

I just wanted to point out that 7.6 isn't a low rating at all, especially for a controversial album like this.
Btw, when it was released I loved it (I even bought that cool hardbound book edition), then for some years it simply disappeared from my CD player, until it returned a couple of months ago.
I feel it hasn't aged well, it's still an OK album (though the concept is a bit meh) and there's a handful of great songs that manage to grab my attention, but ultimately sounds like a watered down sympho-metal with too many skippable interludes. Not to mention the horrible ballad "Lost Love", but whatever.
Overall acceptable, I can't complain that much considering the Priest's whole forty-year career. They just made an average album; they can afford it.

Written by Yaniv on 07.03.2012 at 00:12

Judas Priest made a school to all bands about how to make a concept album.
I like this double album, great sound, never get tired from listen to it.

This is one of the orst concept albums I have ever heard, totally disjointed and uninspired and on a boring subject.

About as horribly bad as Turbo.

Musically it is crap as well as lyrically, but then again JP have been terrible lyricwise for quite a bit of time already. Just listen f.e. to Painkiller's lyrics, they are totally horrendous same for Ram It Down and so many more albums. but the music here is totally pathetic

My favourite Judas Priest album, although that doesn't say so much. Prefer Halford's Crucible.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 29.01.2013 at 23:36

About as horribly bad as Turbo.

Musically it is crap as well as lyrically, but then again JP have been terrible lyricwise for quite a bit of time already. Just listen f.e. to Painkiller's lyrics, they are totally horrendous same for Ram It Down and so many more albums. but the music here is totally pathetic

I agree that on some songs it gets seriosely boring, and actually on the whole the concept is not very good, yet don't you agree there is still some very good songs even in this worst as you said ? Like Exiled ? Sands Of Time ,Pestilence And Plague ? Totally even in their worst they're still one of the bests I dare to say !

It gets a 7. Basically Judas repeated the same formula with "some" success. But it was mediocre at some point. "Nostradamus" sounds great, though.

Written by Monolithic on 16.05.2013 at 20:08
It gets a 7. Basically Judas repeated the same formula with "some" success. But it was mediocre at some point. "Nostradamus" sounds great, though.

I could probably agree with that, based on the eight songs I legally dled, and knowing a lot of the others may be annoying/extraneous/waste-of-time interludes. Would still like to pick up the 2CD, I think... title track is BOSS, just like "Painkiller" but better (an actual song, wow)! "Alone" rules too

Well, this simply would've gotten a 6 from me, but the absurd playing time with nothing but a bunch of dull songs is going to make me have to put this at a 5. Just... ugh.

The music on this album moved me , halford gave an emotional performance and everyone does great, one of priests best

This is my favorite Judas Priest album. Style-wise it's very different than their other albums (being a concept album with lots of interludes), and that's the reason I love it.

As concept album, I think it is failure, but as metal album, I think it is success, most songs are decent, and pretty heavy album.

Could have been executed better, a lot better and the album in general is way too long and has too much filler material, but at least they were willing to experiment again and indulge themselves into more intricate and complex songwriting for the first time since the 70s. It's a shame that they went back to the generic, simplistic style of their 80s releases on Redeemer of Souls instead of improving upon the more progressive and symphonic style of this release. But I guess I can understand it from a financial point of view.

This album is out of this planet

After years which come through, I need to confirm that, I love this album same as at it release. If you hate this album, if you're ortodoxe JP fan, listen me! This album is absolute top of first decade of milenium....don't be ortodoxe...your favorite band did one of best album ever...If you are metal head be proud that classic bands tryes do albums like this! They are still one thousand miles away before everyone else!

Written by muniok on 30.04.2018 at 23:58

This album is out of this planet

In good I suppose ;-)

I love this album, it's a rock opera and I never thought I'd love one of those. War is my shit.

When I first bought this album 12 years ago I thought It was just average but upon recent listenings I think its the best album since Halford's return to JP, and severely underrated due to its experimental style.

I think I respect this album more than I enjoy it, I respect the fact that they tried new things here, took chances.
The album feels a bit disjointed to me, and there are a couple of tracks I skip when I listen these days.

This is so much better than anything they released since the 70's (Demolition excluded as that's a quite intresting one). A lot of great ideas here and surprisingly it holds my interest the entire way. Some stuff is questionable if it needs to be there (New Beginnings at least comes to mind) but overall it's a nice ride and showcases a band that probably should have experimented toward this direction instead of the commercial stuff in the 80's.

This is one of those albums when it sounded like crap when it was first released, because it was highly different than previous efforts & sounds like a totally different band. I only liked Nostradamus & Visions when it came out. But here I am, listening to it as a whole again, 13yrs later, and it's actually a great piece of work. For Judas Priest not having to do this kind of sound before, it's fantastic, honestly. Definitely a storytelling album, with Halford's narrating-like singing when he's not using his heavy vocal style. The classical music in the background makes it beautiful. Yes, there are alot on interludes, and some songs are horrible. And the quality sounds like it's from the mid-80s. But there was real fine gems in this album that are highly overlooked. When I look into albums as a whole, I rate it as a whole - the quality, the production, how the songs are ordered, instrumentation, lyrics. It's a solid 8/10. Not their "best" work, but it's pretty good. And if you're into heavy metal with classical music & story albums. This is what a concept album defines.

Maybe it's because the first time I saw Priest live was in support of this album, but I always felt rather favourable towards this one, or at least more so than most fans. Hearing "Dawn Of Creation" transition into "Prophecy" after years just takes me back. That song always conjures up imagines of old cloaked figures dancing to heavy tunes with flashy lights. (That may or may not have been what that live show looked like, who remembers?)

Nostradamus has its flaws of course; it is too long, the second disc drags on and only picks up near the end, there are a few too many slow or mid-paced tracks overall. I can also understand that most Priest fans were not excited about the band releasing a boring concept album with unnecessary interludes and dramatical elements where the killer guitar solos and soaring screams take a backseat to more theatrical stuff.

It is far from perfect, but I like it much more than subsequent releases that seem to be more focused on pleasing the Vengeance-Screaming, Painkiller-popping, Faith-Defending fanbase. What I am trying to say is that there are many Firepower-like high energy heavy metal albums, from Priest and other bands, while there are far fewer Nostradamus-like albums.


Side not: the guitar solos, particularly on disc 1, always remind me of the solos Jack Black's character plays in Brütal Legend to summon cars and whatnot (I am aware those solos were played by the Priest guys). I think they are heavy on the harmonic minor scale, but I could be wrong.

This was certainly a different approach by Judas Priest, it was their shot at creating some kind of progressive concept album containing lot's of symphonic parts, and it's surprisingly ok for what it is, but it still feels like a watered down Dream Theater Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory.

Too damn long -- shoutout to my dick too, but I am not writing about it here, it's about the album -- did they try to do a guinness record for album length or something; I don't see why else they went with such a long format. If the album was cropped to have the best material it would be a 7-8 rating, where as when Virgin Steele does a concept album it will be a 9-10 with a similar edit. Anyway, there isn't too many great songs here: I'm thinking Visions is the only tier 1 song, there's a few good ones, a few fillers and a plenty of average ones that you don't especially wanna hear multiple times. If I was generous I'd maybe give some extra points for experimentation or whateverthefuck you would call this multitude of songs and having these short-ass songs that I don't know what purpose to make for them; I guess I would call it epic if this was Virgin fucking Steele or Manilla motherfucking Road.

TL;DR: Check the song Visions, other ones may cause disappointment.