The band will release the project’s first single on October 13th
Judas Priest has announced its 19th studio album, Invincible Shield, which will be released on March 8, 2024 via Sony Music. Announced onstage at Power Trip festival in California on Saturday night (Oct 7th), the new record marks the band’s first release in six years.
The project’s first single, “Panic Attack,” is slated to debut on Friday, October 13th.
The track listing is forthcoming, but preorders are available via the band’s website. The album will be available on CD, cassette, and several vinyl variations, including a picture disc and two options with alternate artwork. A deluxe CD and LP contains three exclusive bonus tracks.
The limited edition and store-exclusive alternative artwork LP contains the album on two 180-gram heavyweight black vinyls, packaged in a 6 mm spined gloss gatefold sleeve. Each 12-inch record is housed in a printed inner bag with additional artwork, lyrics and credits. It also includes bootleg-style 7-inch black vinyl packaged in black paper sleeve with center front and back die cuts.
Over the past 50 years, Judas Priest’s music has come to define the metal genre with benchmark albums that have sold in their millions globally and sold out tours that have seen them headline the world’s biggest stadiums. With their evolving music and live performances also came a powerful unique identity – a look which has both defined the group and influenced future generations of metal bands.
Rob Halford, Ian Hill, Glenn Tipton, Scott Travis and Richie Faulkner are currently on their 50 Heavy Metal Years Tour. Ahead of their induction in to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year, the group commemorated 50 million albums sold.
Judas Priest formed in 1970 in Birmingham, England, an area where many feel birthed heavy metal. The original nucleus of musicians would go on to change the face of heavy metal. Throughout the 70s Priest were responsible for helping trailblaze metal with such classic offerings as Sad Wings of Destiny (1976) Sin After Sin (1977) and Hell Bent for Leather (1978) as well as one of the genre’s top live recordings Unleashed in the East (1979) among others.
It was during the 80s that Priest conquered the world, becoming a global arena headliner on the strength of such all-time classics as British Steel (1980) and Screaming for Vengeance (1982), as well as being one of the first metal bands to be embraced by the then-burgeoning MTV, plus performing at some of the decades biggest concerts and being the first to exclusively wear leather and studs – a look that began during this era and would eventually be embraced by metal heads throughout the world. Priest’s success continued throughout the 90s and beyond with the addition of drummer Scott Travis, as evidenced by such additional stellar offerings as Painkiller (1990) Angel of Retribution (2005), and A Touch of Evil: Live (2009) the latter of which saw Priest win a Grammy Award for a killer rendition of the classic Dissident Aggressor.
