Priest is dead. Long live Priest.
The enigmatic Swedish band released a new song on Friday called “Let Your Body Go” that heralds the start of the band’s next incarnation. For those new to Priest, the band terminates its current look and sound at the end of each album cycle. A new version of Priest boots up to support the next album. It’s all very theatrical and, I’ll be honest, pretty damn exciting.
The next version of Priest will be known as 3.0, and a new album is presumably in the works. They’ve yet to reveal the look of Priest 3.0.
The band teased 3.0 in a recent livestream that featured extremely high production quality. A “breach” occurred during the event that revealed 3.0 is coming. You can still pay to watch it at Vimeo.
Rumor has it that Priest 3.0 plans to tour Europe and may even be coming to the United States in 2022.
Priest 2.0 says goodbye
The livestream was the first and last concert performed by Priest 2.0. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the band from touring behind their second album, Cyberhead, which featured a calmer sound in keeping with the era. With COVID coming to an end (hopefully), they’ve decided to ramp things up and move on to the next iteration.
Version 2.0 marked a big change for Priest. Original singer Tom Åsberg (also known as Ginger Khan) left the band to pursue other projects. Priest puppetmaster Linton Rubino took over vocals, which are performed by a masked character they call Mercury.
Priest’s new song “Let Your Body Go” is an energetic, club-friendly banger with a thumping EBM beat and techno elements. It sounds quite different from the songs on Cyberhead. If this is the direction that 3.0 is taking, I’m ready for it.
