Judas Priest bassist Ian Hill says 2014’s Redeemer Of Souls is “the best album” the veteran band have ever done.
Issued last summer, the group’s 17th album delivered their first-ever US Top 10 debut and their highest UK album chart entry in 34 years – landing in the No. 12 position.
Frontman Rob Halford declared Redeemer will be “revered” a decade from now, and is so enthusiastic about Faulkner’s songwriting skills that he’s already itching to make another record.
Ahead of their appearance at Australia’s Soundwave Festival series later this month, Hill backed up Halford’s comments in an interview with the event’s Lindsay McDougall.
Hill says: “Obviously, whatever album we do, it’s gotta stand up to what went before. But with the endless quality material that Richie and Glenn and Rob were churning out, it was evident from the start that this album was gonna be a classic, and that’s the way it’s turned out.
“People say, ‘What’s your favorite album?’ and everybody always says the latest one. Only this one is, you know?! I think it’s the best, obviously, classic Priest album. You can’t really count Nostradamus, being sort of a standalone, one-off sort of album. But I think Redeemer is the best album that we’ve done.”
The group were so pleased with the results from the Redeemer sessions that they issued 5 Souls – a limited-edition 10-inch vinyl package featuring five bonus tracks – as part of 2014’s Black Friday Record Store Day.
Hill explains: “This album is quality material, hence the mini disc. I mean, we couldn’t discard those songs – they were too good – and if we hadn’t used them, they would have been probably forgotten about, which would have been a crying shame.”
Following their Soundwave appearance, Judas Priest will play a series of March dates in Japan and head to South America in April before launching a European tour in June.
