This whole Nos thing reminds me of what happened when Point of Entry followed British Steel. Alot of hard core fans hated P.O.E. I didn't dislike the album as a whole, of course there are some songs on that CD that I still hit skip on to this day (we all know the ones!) So you had heavy fans complaining, and people who where more into mainstream music going, hey that's not that bad! Which to a hardcore fan makes you want to cring when a mainstreamer says that.
Then, Screaming for Vengeance came out and moved the bar up for all bands as to what would pass for true heavy metal. SFV became an 80's gold standard to Heavy Metal.
That said, I do anticipate the next JP new release will once again raise that bar and apply a new standard to the genre of Heavy Metal, and I for one can't wait to hear it! The only time this progression of music seemed to truely falter in all these years was the release of Turbo followed up by Ram it Down. Ram it Down as not a good LP, it really wasn't! I was very disheartened with that LP. True it has some good songs on it but it lacks the cohhesive quality that is Judas Priest.
Just my two cents on a long debated issue.
