Nostradamus didn't see Judas Priest coming, did he?

Busy, busy in the studio: Rob Halford and his old friends Judas Priest, working on a concept album about Nostradamus. Why Nostradamus?

"(He's) a real man, not like a fantasy that you get in rock and roll and metal. (We're) telling the story of this very controversial human being from 500 years ago, from France, who still resonates all these years later. It's a human story as well as one that you know about from his premonitions."

Well, yes, he was a real man, but he was also a terrible fantasist himself - as you might have spotted with all his vaguely-worded "premonitions", all of which have come true if you use the ample wiggle-room he gave himself. Just because he really existed doesn't make an apocalyptic doom-laden concept album any more inherently less pompous, Mr. Halford.

But then: I wouldn't understand, would I?

"If you don't like metal, if you don't understand metal, you'll never get it. You just won't grasp it. It's very difficult to convert somebody into metal if they don't understand what it means."

And there we were thinking it was just ordinary rock with a midlife crisis.