CoC : Halford - Resurrection : Review

Halford - _Resurrection_
(Sanctuary, 2000)
by: Matthias Noll (5 out of 10)

After a short and unsuccessful intermezzo in the industrial genre, Rob Halford's metal heart has miraculously started to beat again, and in true metal warrior fashion he comes roaring along on his brand new motorcycle. Crackerjack clothes have been replaced by the good old leather outfit and old Rob looks quite mean -- or laughable, depending on one's stance towards traditional metal poses. The sticker on my CD says "The metal God is back", and being the naive person I sometimes am, I expected "Painkiller Part II" or at least something close to that. _Resurrection_ starts quite promisingly with the fast-paced title track in true "Painkiller" style with high-pitched trademark vocals. Track two, the driving "Made in Hell", is also quite good, even if less powerful. But after these convincing first two songs have passed by, things suddenly start to get lame. How someone can pen a stupid track like "Locked and Loaded" is way beyond my comprehension, and with the exception of the disc's highlight, "Silent Scream" (done along the lines of the immortal "Beyond the Realms of Death") and the duet with Dickinson on "The One You Love to Hate", the rest of _Resurrection_ is one filler track after the other. While the lead guitar work could easily be mistaken for Downing/Tipton, all of the fillers have some things in common: the serious lack of guitar riffs and song structures you haven't heard a million times before. Surprisingly enough, Halford's return to the metal scene is not as much a showcase for his unique voice as one might expect, but also plagued by far too few outstanding vocal performances compared to benchmarks set on _Unleashed in the East_ or _Painkiller_. Looking back at his output since the split from Judas Priest, from which the song "Light Comes Out of Black" (with Pantera) is almost the only highlight, _Ressurection_ has somehow succeeded in robbing me of most illusions about what metal god Rob is worth without a serious band or songwriter by his side. Don't get fooled by the hype, of course every track on _Ressurection_ could have been on a Priest record (not on _Jugulator_, though), but as a whole this is at maximum on par with their weaker output (take _Point of Entry_, for example). Let's just continue to wait for the inevitable reunion...

(article published 20/11/2000)