JUDAS PRIEST frontman Rob Halford says the band are playing some of the best metal of their career. The band are currently on the road across Europe ahead of a series of US dates and a return to the continent – and the Metal God is raving about the live experience.

HALFORD tells Full Metal Jackie: “I think the point that we're at now with this band is, it seems like every show is an event, to some extent. The fact that this is the umpteenth double-digits studio album, hundreds of songs later, these are just moments that we cherish more than ever, I think. And there's a little bit of that now each time we walk on stage. This show, the next show… they're all vital to the band in a lot of different ways.

“We're roaring right now. Any band will tell you when you've been on the road for a while, you know internally what you've gotta do. All your bandmates are thinking it. You don't have to talk about it. You know instinctively what you've gotta do when you get dressed and you walk to that stage.

“So I think that what we're doing right now is some of our best metal, quite frankly. And we're all really, really proud of what we're pouring out through the speakers.”

Guitarist Richie Faulkner recently declared his JUDAS PRIEST bandmates as brothers, four years after he joined the metal veterans following the retirement of co-founder KK Downing.

Priest performed at Sofia's Arena Armeets last Tuesday and will return to the UK for a 6-show run in November with special guests Michael Schenker’s Temple Of Rock.