1133. KK's Priest / Sermons of the Sinner. 2021. 3.5/5

There seemed little doubt from the outset that KK’s Priest was going to sound a hell of a lot like Judas Priest in one way shape or form. I mean, you have a founding member of that band as the leader of this band, a man who had been a part of that band for 40 years before the somewhat acrimonious split that then occurred. Then you also have the man who was brought in to replace the original lead singer when he went off to do a solo thing, and replaced him with aplomb. And, for a moment, there was even one of the drummers of the band from the late 1970’s re-joining as well, so the whole thing had a very nostalgic feel about it.
It still seems unlikely that this would ever have come to pass if K.K. Downing hadn’t felt slighted that he hadn’t been asked to rejoin Judas Priest when Glen Tipton retired from playing with the band due to his continued degeneration of Parkinson’s Disease, and instead the band had brought in Andy Sneap to replace him on tour. There was sniping that went on between both camps, until K.K’s Priest was formed, it feels almost as a ‘fuck you, I can still do this’ to Judas Priest. Ripper had sided with KK on this issue, and so it was no surprise that he came in as the lead singer as the band took shape.
It’s difficult not to compare Sermons of the Sinner to Judas Priest given the history of the main members of the band, and a lot of people have tried to compare it to some of the great Priest albums such as Painkiller and Screaming for Vengeance and British Steel. That seems like an easy cop to me. I was always much interested in how it compared to Priest’s last album, the quite brilliant modern day metal homage of “Firepower”, where Judas Priest mixed in a recognition of their past sound with a modern edge, with Halford keeping his vocals in a range that suits his age and singing ability of the modern day. Firepower is a modern masterpiece, and if Sermons of the Sinner could match that, then the band not only had a future it had also proved a point to a certain degree.

So does it hold its own against this comparison to the other Priest band? All of the first three songs on the album hold their own musically in this regard. The spoken word opening of “Incarnation” kicks into the opening track “Hellfire Thunderbolt”, also the lead single, and it ticks all of those boxes. The rolling double kick drumming, the hard core riff along with the melodic guitar solos in the mix, all filled by the high range vocals of Tim “Ripper” Owens. This is followed by the title track “Sermons of the Sinner” which continues to provide a great riff and some high toned vocals from Ripper, and then into “Sacerdote y Diablo”.
From this point on though, the tracks begin to lessen in absolute quality. In particular, there is a standardising of the lyrical content. Simply put, some of the lyrics are a bit… dicey. Some would call them cheesy, others may call them… childish? It’s fine to want to aim songs at the kids out there, but the majority of fans who are going to buy this album are going to be the same age as the protagonists in the band, and they aren’t really going to jump around singing lyrics such as these. And it isn’t as if we are looking for anything that is outstandingly profound or massively thought-provoking. We just don’t want to feel a bit foolish when we sing along to the songs. Here is a snatch from each of the following four songs after the opening stanza:

“Raise your fists in the air lets rock the nations everywhere”. “Raise Your Fists”
“We’re brothers of the road, and we rock, we’re burning up the freeway we never stop”. “Brothers of the Road”
“We are loyal, we are true, we are as one, us and you, we’re metal, through and through”. “Metal Through and Through.
“We’re breaking loose cos we’re wild and free – Oi! Oi! Oi!”. “Wild and Free”

The album then concludes with “Hail for the Priest”, another doubled edged sword song vocally invoking that other band, and then once again with “Return of the Sentinel”. What a shame to end the album the way they did with “Return of the Sentinel”. It feels like a cop out. It should have been powerful and energetic and leaving the listener wanting more. Instead, it felt like a cheap Rob Halford copy, and not something Judas Priest would have done anyway.
As one of my best mates commented when we were discussing the album, and the lyrics especially a few days ago, that it feels a little bit like the band had three really good songs sorted and written, and they just decided to pump out another half a dozen songs from the ‘how to write a standard hard rock song in one easy lesson’ formula guidebook and get a full album out. The fact that KK probably had a pretty involved hand in creating that handbook should absolve him from any pretence at copying or feeding off that book, but nonetheless the songs on the back half of the album do feel a bit formulaic and lacking in the kind of polish you would expect from a band containing such experience and excellence. In cricket parlance, it sounds like they’ve stacked the top order, but the tail starts at four.

No one out there, none of you, came in to listen to this album without being a fan of Judas Preist, because there it almost literally no other way you would have felt that desire to hear it. So the band always knew what market they would be aiming at, and what they had to produce in order to appease that market – do an album that sounded like Judas Priest, but was just different enough so that no one would say “Why didn’t they do something that was different from everything else they used to do when they were in that band?”. To be fair, KK and his crew were on a hiding to nothing when it came to people reviewing this album. Either it was going to be loved because KK had written the same kind of songs he always did and performed them that way, or it was going to be damned - because KK had written the same kind of songs he always did and performed them that way.
It is an interesting predicament, mainly because KK had composed this basically by himself, and although he has already announced that they are looking at doing a follow up album, one that will be more collaborative across the members of the band, is that such a good idea? Because Ripper has rarely really been involved in the writing of the songs of the projects he has been involved in, and the stuff that he has had a hand in the writing with... is ok without being awesome. But the man can sing, and that’s why he is a hired hand through so many different projects. The supporting cast here also do their job well.

If you like Judas Priest you will enjoy this album. And, depending on the mood you are in when you listen to it, you may consider it either a flawed attempt at a first strike with both great tracks and bloated generic heavy metal tracks, or a masterpiece of modern heavy metal. It’s no Firepower, Judas Priest’s most recent album, but by the same token if you compared it to Priest’s Nostradamus epic, you may well think that this album shaves it in enjoyment value. And in the long run, that’s what it comes down to. Enjoyment. And if you look past the cheesiness of some of the lyrics being sprouted here and just take it as a fun listen, you’ll find that it passes the time quite enjoyably.