New Judas Priest Album Is Finished

Judas Priest‘s first new album since 2008′s ‘Nostradamus’ — and first with new guitarist Richie Faulkner — is complete.

“The Priest album is finished. It’s done,” Priest frontman Rob Halford told Loudwire. “I just heard from the mastering sessions that [guitarist] Glenn [Tipton is] looking over in England, it’s finished. It’s done.”

Halford was on the red carpet on Monday (March 17) for the 3rd annual Ronnie James Dio Awards, where he was given the Man on the Silver Mountain Award — named after the Rainbow song he coincidentally just recorded for an upcoming tribute album — for helping to raise awareness of Dio’s Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund. But he also admitted that the newly finished work doesn’t have a release date.

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“It’s coming out at some point,” he continued. “We’ve got some more information we’re about to drop but in the process of the magic of building up expectation and tension to the climax.”

Halford promised a “hard” and “heavy” set of songs during a 2013 interview with Billboard, adding, “It’s something we think our Priest fans will be thrilled with. We know we have a reputation to maintain, and we know we have to deliver something really strong and solid. The album is going to be full of all the great things you love about Judas Priest — I don’t think I can say anything more than that without being hung, drawn and quartered.”