Album Review: KK’s Priest - The Sinner Rides Again
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
“The Sinner Rides Again” is the second album from KK’s Priest - the follow up band of former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing. It comes two years after the band’s debut album “Sermons Of The Sinner” and sees the same line-up return for this sophomore album. “Sermons Of The Sinner” was a solid if rather formulaic album so the question is will “The Sinner Rides Again” be a step up or more of the same?
Musically this is still the same mixture of traditional heavy metal with elements of power and speed metal but this time round the songs definitely have a bit more oomph about them and a bit more variation from powerhouse tunes like ‘Strike Of The Viper’ and ‘One More Shot At Glory’ to more power metal sounding tunes such as the title track and personal favourite ‘Reap The Whirlwind’ which has a wonderfully old school metal riff running through it.
You also get songs which have a more epic edge to them such as ‘Keeper Of The Graves’ and ‘Pledge Your Souls’. The performances are all tight as hell with excellent guitar work from K.K. and A.J. Mills plus the drumming from Sean Elg is suitably pounding. Tim “Ripper” Owens sounds suitably ferocious on vocals and his vocals are powerful though his screams are a bit too enthusiastic at times and a bit distracting. When Ripper is on point though he sounds fantastic.
Being a founding member of Judas Priest, the legacy of that band still does hang over KK’s Priest from the name of the band to the namechecking of Judas Priest songs and musically “The Sinner Rides Again” has more of a Judas Priest feel to it than the debut album. It still feels like that this is K.K. trying to out-priest Judas Priest rather than have a band that stand on their own feet and whilst that can detract from the album itself it is clear that “The Sinner Rides Again” is a huge step up from the debut. The band sounds more comfortable and assured, the songwriting is vastly improved and the production and mix is leagues better. Everything sounds bigger and better. Whilst “The Sinner Rides Again” is not a perfect heavy metal album it is a very enjoyable one and fans of Judas Priest, traditional heavy metal and power metal should definitely take the time to give this a spin.
