Q1 Metal Roundup!

New albums from Judas Priest, Iron Curtain, Chapel Of Disease, Vitriol & Mean Mistreater

Rob Halford of Judas Priest

For professional reasons, I spend a lot more time listening to jazz than metal, but my heart continues to pump out blast beats and double-kick-drum thunder. So every once in a while, I like to catch up with the genre that’s kept my head banging since I was 11 years old. And 2024 has already begun to establish itself as a very strong year for metal. Here are five records from the last three months that have been kicking my ass good and hard.

I’ve been a Judas Priest fan for over 40 years, and the streak they’ve been on in the last decade rivals any stretch in their history. It’s been almost 20 years since singer Rob Halford returned to the fold on 2005’s Angel of Retribution, but I’ll freely admit that that album and the 2008 2CD set Nostradamus were mixed bags at best. They eventually found their footing, though, and each of their last three records — 2014’s Redeemer of Souls, 2018’s Firepower, and the new Invincible Shield — has been better than its predecessor.

Invincible Shield opens with three absolute rippers in a row; “Panic Attack” kicks things off with a synthwavey intro and crunching riff that nods to 1986’s electronics-slathered Turbo, with techno-paranoiac lyrics that recall “Electric Eye,” from 1982’s classic Screaming For Vengeance. “The Serpent and the King” and “Invincible Shield” are every bit as hard-charging and anthemic, with Halford shrieking at the top of his range throughout. But as the album progresses, their (almost) radio-friendly side emerges on songs like “Crown of Horns,” “Devil in Disguise,” and “Gates of Hell.” Ultimately, this album — their 20th (yeah, I count the two Halford-less albums as real, even if I don’t listen to them) — is an incredible showcase for a veteran band at their peak, displaying all the things that make them great. It’s an amazing record, a must-hear even if you’re only a sometime fan.

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Iron Curtain are a Spanish band who remind me of Judas Priest as they sounded in 1980, crossed with then-upstart acts like Motörhead and Venom. Their fifth album, Savage Dawn, came out at the end of February and it is unrepentantly old-school. Vocalist/guitarist Mike Leprosy has the hoarse roar of a young Max Cavalera, and drummer Moroco is a speed demon who throws subtle surprises into the middle of tracks to make sure you’re paying attention — catch that little cowbell accent on “Devil’s Eyes”! Once upon a time, this blend of catchy hooks, screaming guitar solos, and shout-along choruses was the minimum bar you had to clear to be admitted to the metal brotherhood, but these days bands that can write songs that sink into your brain on first listen, only to reappear unbidden in the shower weeks later, are few and far between. Iron Curtain are a blast, and if I ever get to Spain, I hope they’re playing.

Chapel of Disease are from Germany. They have four albums to their name, going back to 2012, but I’ve only heard the last two: …And As We Have Seen the Storm, We Have Embraced the Eye, from 2018, and Echoes of Light, which came out in February. It’s my understanding that they started out as a death/thrash band, but by their third album, they had moved in a ’70s psychedelic hard rock direction, transforming their songs into long jams that bring to mind other, similarly retro acts like Ghost, Tanith, and Tribulation, except that the guitar solos (like the one that ends “Void of Words” on …Storm) are so clean and pretty, they could be from a Dire Straits album. I’m not joking. The band’s leader, Laurent Teubl, is a visionary, hurtling down a path of his own making in a custom-built rocket sled. The only thing linking the band’s current music to extreme metal is his hoarse vocals; “Echoes of Light,” the opening title track, is a fucking jam.

Vitriol’s Suffer & Become is gonna be a hard sell for a lot of you. But if you accept it on its own terms it’s an absolutely stunning record. They’re a death metal band from Portland, Oregon whose debut, To Bathe From the Throat of Cowardice, came out in 2019. But that was more of a rebirth than a debut, as vocalist/guitarist Kyle Rasmussen and bassist/vocalist Adam Roethlisberger had previously been in the screamo/deathcore band Those Who Lie Beneath together, from 2005 to 2013. I guess they’ve undergone a stylistic transformation along with their new, much better name, because Suffer & Become is face-punching technical death metal for fans of Vader, Vital Remains, and Hate Eternal, with maybe some Marduk thrown in (Rasmussen sounds a lot like Daniel “Mortuus” Rostén at times). This album is all blast beats and roars and dissonant guitar squiggles and Tom G. Warrior-esque “URGH”s, with epic synths welling up in the background and the occasional raspy black metal screech. Drummer Matt Kilner is an absolute monster. This record will wash over you like a wave of hot, fetid black water...until they surprise you with the prog-jazz-fusion instrumental “Survival’s Careening Intertia.” Take the ride.

Mean Mistreater are an Austin, Texas bar band whose eight-track debut album, Razor Wire, feels epic despite lasting just 27 minutes. Every one of its eight songs is a retro hard rock/metal anthem that would sound perfect blasting out of the cassette deck of a black Trans Am on a blazing hot afternoon. Vocalist Janiece Gonzalez has a hoarse, gravelly scream that reminds me of ’80s metal queens like Chastain’s Leather Leone and Znöwhite’s Nicole Lee. The band — guitarists Alex Wein and Quinten Lawson, bassist Jon Gibson, and especially drummer Joaquin Ridgell — bring the thunder, writing riffs that nod to early AC/DC and Ronnie James Dio-era Black Sabbath, then rev up to hardcore punk speed. Slotting Mean Mistreater in as one of the musical acts in the recent remake of Road House would have made it a very different, and much better, movie.

That’s it for now. See you next week!