Thursday, July 31, 2008
Who could have predicted a band who’ve been around since the beginning of time (more precisely, since the inception of heavy metal) would produce such an audaciously ambitious project? Judas Priest’s Nostradamus is a 23-track, double-CD concept album. Unlike the central figures in other such releases like Pink Floyd’s The Wall, The Who’s Tommy, or Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son (also a seer), Nostradamus actually existed. With orchestral elements, Rob Halford’s piercingly high and alternately resonant low vocals, and one cut mainly sung in Italian, it almost deserves to be called a metal opera.
Appearing: 8/17 at First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park.
Calling at a most ungodly (metal or otherwise) hour in the morning from Dusseldorf, Germany, Halford spoke about the project and the man on whom the work is based. Nostradamus “is definitely famous for predicting things — Napoleon, Hitler, the alleged end of the world in 2012. He’s just a very controversial figure 500 years later.”
