Judas Priest Album: “'98 Live Meltdown”

This is a trully masterpiece of a heavy metal live album.

Ripper Owens is a great frontman and an amazing singer! His performance in the songs written in the Halford era is simply awesome. In fact, in songs like "beyound the realms of death", "metal gods" and "diamonds and rust" I dare to say that Owens had a better perormance than Halford. In the whole, Owens had a wonderful performance and he drives the cwowd crazy with his screams and powerful voice!

The band performance is also awesome and the crowd is burning.The track list couldn't be better, with classic songs and a few songs from the jugulator album.

It is a must have for any metal fan all over the world.

I like new Judas Priest in its own way. I mean, it has three core members, their best drummer and Ripper is good. But it's not close to the best of the classic stuff. That being said, most of the songs on here are very heavy and as should be expected with a good live album, more immediate than the studio versions. The set list is excellent, though they should've included Cathedral Spires, hands down the best song Priest have written post-Halford. Ripper shows he can sing the classics. Though the drum intro to Painkiller here makes the original seem like a studio trick. If you don't mind new Priest you'll like this. Old fans who didn't necessarily like the new studio albums should pick this up. I give Ripper credit as being a good singer but let's face it no one compares to Rob Halford except King Diamond and a couple others.

Ok, as a long time Priest fan I'm not particularly excited about Jugulator or Demolition. I've always like Rob Halford and the new down-tuned and simpler song writing style of Priest doesn't strike me as a good move for this classic band.

So I had pretty low expectations for this live release. But when I actually listened to it, it was hard to not like it. Timi Owens actually has a great voice - proving he's not really the problem with the new Priest (I think it's the songwriting). And even the Jugulator stuff sounds good on this album.

Is it essential? Hardly. Don't buy unless you have Priest in the East, most of the Halford era albums, and even Priest . . . Live! All of those are a bit better. But this is still a good album, so don't write it off just because you're not crazy about Jugulator or Demolition.

This is a terrific live album with a great set list. However, for all of those who think that Ripper blows Halford out of the water, keep this in mind: all of the songs on this album are transposed to a lower key. For all those guitar players out there, I believe its dropped at least a whole step thus, increasing Ripper's apparent range. Halford sang all of his stuff in standard tuning which just shows you how talented he really was(is). That being said, Ripper's performance is still incredible and Glenn and KK are transposing their music to fit the range of their singer.

I saw these guys on the jugulator tour in pittsburgh at metropool and believe me this album lives upto and surpasses my expectations. This is the best period. the inclusion of the green manalishi (with the 2 pronged crown) alone is worth having this c.d.. PRIEST IS BACK