Judas Priest’s Rob Halford announces new Christmas album

By Scott Munro
( Classic Rock )
published

The Metal God will launch Celestial later this year - watch video for new track Donner And Blitzen

Rob Halford

Rob Halford (opens in new tab) has revealed he’ll release a Christmas album later this year.

It’s titled Celestial and will be the Judas Priest (opens in new tab) frontman’s second Yuletide release and follows Halford III: Winter Songs, which launched in 2009.

Like the previously release, the new album will feature a collection festive favourites which have been given a metal makeover, including Away In A Manger, The First Noel, O Little Town Of Bethlehem and Good King Wenceslas.

Celestial is set to arrive on October 18 through Legacy Recordings.

Along with the traditional Christmas tunes, Celestial will also include four original songs which were recorded for the project: Celestial, Donner And Blitzen, Morning Star and Protected By The Light.

And to mark the announcement, Halford has released a video for Donner And Blitzen which can be found below, along with the cover art, tracklist and pre-order details.

Halford is joined on Celestial by a number of associates, friends and family.

Next year will mark Judas Priest’s 50th anniversary, with the band revealing last month that they would play a special set to mark the milestone at Wacken Open Air which will take place between July 30 - August 1 (opens in new tab).

The band will also be special guests of Ozzy Osbourne (opens in new tab) on the rescheduled UK and European leg of his No More Tour 2 shows in early 2020 (opens in new tab).

Rob Halford: Celestial
1. Celestial
2. Donner and Blitzen
3. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
4. Away In A Manger
5. Morning Star
6. Deck The Halls
7. Joy To The World
8. O Little Town Of Bethlehem
9. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
10. The First Noel
11. Good King Wenceslas
12. Protected By The Light

Rob Halford: Celestial (opens in new tab)

Rob Halford: Celestial (opens in new tab)
Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford will release a new collection of festive favourites with a metal makeover in October. Celestial also features four brand new tracks.

View Deal (opens in new tab)
Scott Munro
Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers and magazines as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. After initially joining our news desk in the summer of 2014, he moved to the e-commerce team full-time in 2020. He maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott grew up listening to rock and prog, cutting his teeth on bands such as Marillion and Magnum before his focus shifted to alternative and post-punk in the late 80s. His favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Drab Majesty, but he also still has a deep love of Rush.