"All grinding desperation and lank-haired perspiration": the new album by KK's Priest confirms that they're not a viable alternative to the real thing

The apocalypse is nigh (part 182)

KK's Priest: The Return Of The Sinner album art
(Image: © Napalm)

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Do KK's Priest (featuring ex-Judas Priest guitarist KK Downing and Tim 'Ripper' Owens, Priest singer 1996-2003) provide a credible alternative to the real thing? They do not.

The Sinner Rides Again, the band's second album, suffers from the same faults as their first. In Downing's eyes (and ears), nothing has changed in the heavy metal world since Priest's Painkiller in 1990. It's all grinding desperation and lank-haired perspiration. There's no light and shade, only doom and demolition. If you're gonna get mauled by a lion, at least make it interesting. 

This album is so one-dimensional that one begins to question the very existence of the Spider-Verse. Echoes of Accept and Manowar exacerbate the archaic vibe. We've heard it all before – and better. The album's highlight is Hymn 66, even if it is basically a rewrite of Dissident Aggressor.

In old-school reviewing terms, The Sinner Rides Again scrapes a – sadly appropriate – KK rating. In other words, 4/10.

Geoff Barton

Geoff Barton is a British journalist who founded the heavy metal magazine Kerrang! and was an editor of Sounds music magazine. He specialised in covering rock music and helped popularise the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) after using the term for the first time (after editor Alan Lewis coined it) in the May 1979 issue of Sounds.

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