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| Conceived in various American studios during the past 12 months, Crucible is the long-awaited studio follow-up to Halford's critically acclaimed 2000 debut album, Resurrection. The driving force behind Halford (the band) is, of course, Birmingham-born vocalist Rob Halford |
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Conceived in various American studios during the past 12 months, Crucible is the long-awaited studio follow-up to Halford's critically acclaimed 2000 debut album, Resurrection. The driving force behind Halford (the band) is, of course, Birmingham-born vocalist Rob Halford a true living legend in the realms of hard rock and heavy metal. For more than two decades, Halford strode some of the planet's biggest stages with genre giants Judas Priest, before announcing to the world on Independence Day, 1992, that he was going to try something new. Appropriately, after issuing albums with Fight and Two, the vocalist then chose the Millennium year to return to his first true love unadulterated, blitzkrieg heavy metal with Halford and the Resurrection album.
Critics and fans alike were quick to acclaim Resurrection as a true masterpiece. The UK's Classic Rock magazine called it: "Perhaps the greatest album Judas Priest never made", and they were far from alone in their praise. Following the album's release, Halford spent the next six months circulating globe. Some 93 shows were played across North America, Europe and Japan (many as special guests of management stablemates Iron Maiden), each one leaving the audience gasping in the wake of white-hot originals like 'Locked And Loaded' and 'Night Fall' and numerous choice nuggets from Rob's celebrated Priest/Fight repertoire. The tour concluded at the third Rock In Rio Festival in Brazil, where Halford thrilled an estimated audience 200,000 fans with many more watching via the internet. The band's first world trek also generated last year's double 'Live Insurrection' set which, amongst many memorable highlights, included a one-time only live version of 'The One You Love To Hate' from London's LA2 that featured Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson.
Now comes Crucible, an album that retains all the numerous strengths of its predecessor, yet takes the band's sound to a stunning new plateau. Cloaked in Rob's trademark banshee wails and boasting exemplary duelling guitars from Patrick Lachman and Mike Chlasciak, such rip-roaring anthems as 'Betrayal' earmarked to be the album's first video in June 'Wrath Of God', 'Handing Out Bullets' and the salutatory 'One Will' are all destined be heralded as classic Halford moments .
"I think I've penetrated even closer to the heart of the metal community with this new album," says Rob proudly. "It shows all the wonderful things that metal really means to me, and we've offered many different ways of presenting it to the listener. But we've also tried to advance the sound so that it fits comprehensively into today's musical world. With Resurrection, I set myself up as having made a great metallic comeback. It was important to me that we didn't let anybody down with the follow-up, but it would have disappointed everybody more if we'd just made 'Resurrection II'.
"Of course, it would have been easy to have just stuck with the formula again," he continues. "To have done that would have been numbing for everybody. I wanted to prove that I am still Rob Halford the metal god, and all those other things but that also to show that I can still pull something unexpected out of the hat. I've consistently tried to shake things up throughout my career, and I've managed it again."
Completing the Halford line-up, bassist Ray Riendeau and percussionist Bobby Jarzombek (who Rob describes as "the best heavy metal drummer I know") make a truly formidable rhythmic partnership, and guitarists Lachman and Chlasciak have really surpassed themselves on Crucible. This time, as the singer is only too pleased to point out, the instrumentalists also became more involved in the writing process.
After Rock In Rio, Rob hooked up with the two guitar players in Room 303 of the Park Manor Hotel (hence the title of the album's feedback-strewn instrumental scene-setter), which is close to his home in San Diego, and over the course of the next three months they proceeded to infuriate the Park Manor's residents with "all manner of ungodly sounds" as the record slowly took shape. "We worked for 12 hours a day, seven days a week," recalls Rob, "and I think we've managed to surpass 'Resurrection'.
Crucible was once again overseen by Roy Z, the hotshot young producer who has also collaborated with Dickinson, Downset, Roadsaw and Helloween. Roy also helped to write several of the songs, including 'Crucible', 'Trail Of Tears' and 'Crystal'. Explains Rob: "I felt that even though Roy did such a great job with Resurrection, he still had a lot more to give. So it made good sense to use him again, and Roy really went over the top this time, it's no exaggeration to say that he's now become the unofficial sixth member of this band."
Lyrically, Halford states that many of the songs on Crucible address things that are happening in the world at the moment, instead of writing from personal experience as he mainly did on Resurrection. When asked to describe the album to someone who might not be completely aware of the Halford/Priest legacy, he chuckles. "To me, it could even be called metal with a dictionary," the singer finally guffaws. "I'm always looking for new things to say."
As Rob has already intimated, in terms of sheer musical diversity, Crucible offers more than a few surprises. While the track 'Crucible', for instance, is a powerful, thoroughly convincing hard rock tune, it also incorporates a slight Gothic feel. 'Hearts Of Darkness' is built around an Eastern-flavoured melody, though the tune's underlying crunch is indisputable. And 'Sun', with its blissful mid-paced feel and layered guitars, is perhaps the biggest departure for Halford especially when it comes to Rob's vocals performance
"Yeah, 'Sun' is definitely an unusual track, and so is 'Crystal' musically, they're both quite edgy," he states. "The really strange thing is that I can't remember where the idea for 'Sun' came from, at first it was just a little riff, but we built the song around the song's melody. And that's the great thing about this album; it's well-balanced and complete. Although there are lots and lots of metal riffs, we also take the listener on a deep, interesting journey. It's a metal banquet, really."
As he and the rest of the Halford unit prepare to hit the road once again, Rob looks back with great affection upon the Resurrection tour. So consistent were the performances of Halford (the band), and equally receptive the audiences right across the globe that he is somewhat reluctant to select highlights.
"The wonderful thing was that the audiences seemed as keen to see me as I was to see them," he smiles. "It was great for the shows that we did in the my homeland of the UK to have been so rammed to the rafters, and I hope to come back and play a longer British tour this time around. But, to me, every show was important whether it was in Europe, Japan or North or South America the metal maniacs were going crazy every single night, and that entire tour was an affirmation of everything I'm about."
Halford's world trek begins in front of 25,000 punters with a headline spot at the Sweden Rock Festival on June 7, and is scheduled to continue well into 2003.
Crucible is released through Metal-Is Records on June 24
Source: http://www.noiserecords.com/halford/bio.html |
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