Fight-K5 The War of words demos

Metal God Entertainment
2007

Releasing an album of demos is a concept that seems to have just become fairly popular in recent years. My previous experiences with albums of this type is that they tend to me just under produced versions of the songs you know or they may have a few unreleased tracks. However those songs tend to only be valuable to die hard fans of the particular band. However, this album might be the exception to what I thought was a rule about demo albums. I remember buying War of words the month it came out and playing it a lot back then. This newly released collection is supposed to represent Halford's original vision of the album. After a few plays I realized that I like this version better than the original release. I am a little surprised to say that, but it became obvious that this version is superior and does greater justice to the material. Halford is the best metal vocalist of all time and when he left Priest he of course pulled drummer Scott Travis with him and then filled in the rest of the band with some young and energetic musicians. This album was pure metal despite the fact that this was recorded in 1992 when "metal" was becoming a dirty word because grunge was wiping out many bands. Not just that it was metal, but they were stripping down the sound and bringing forth an aggressive, almost bare bones approach which was in contrast to the over processed sound that had become more popular between say 1987-1991. Hearing these versions makes me aware that the original version of the album polished the songs up a bit too much and they didn't need it. You can hear the raw power in these versions and retains so much grit and Halford's vocals sound better here because the slightly rough tone helped him to sound more energized than he had in years. There is a definite aggressive tone and primal energy on these songs that the original version didn't quite have or at least not to this extent. I think that this version of the album shows that the band was really doing something special at the time and we never quite got to hear that back in the early 1990's which is a shame because metal fans certainly could have used an album of this magnitude. This is not just a specialty album or one just for diehards, but a true must for all fans of Fight and Rob Halford.