Heavy metal loves gods, loves impossible feats carried out live and on stage. For decades now, the gods of heavy metal have trotted out the hits. They have tried to sound better than good, to deliver the kinds of performances that will put thousands of hands in the air, horns up. They have tried to be more than merely mortal, to summon the old magic again and again and again.

I imagine it is hard to be a god in your 70s. Rob Halford is that. The living embodiment of metal, still on the road with Judas Priest, still decked out in leather and studs, tattooed to the nines, trying to perform night after night with a teleprompter and new bandmates, using an echo effect to sustain the screams the audience demands. He’s still going, even as the work gets harder and harder.

Bruce Dickinson is also a god. 65 now, he refuses to accept that he sounds strained when he hits the notes he used to hit, will not allow his bandmates in Iron Maiden or his solo band to tune down a step or two. He’s still going, too, weathering cancer and the wear and tear of decades.

Biff Byford is not a god. Saxon is not a band that commands audiences in their thousands. They are instead a working band with a new album every two years or so, a new tour, rolling on and on without stopping. Byford sounds pretty good, too, especially for a 73-year-old metal singer, perhaps because he has rarely tried to move too far past a gruff bluesy shout. He can’t hold the notes like he could, but he can be forgiven for that. After all, he’s 73.

All three of these singers have appeared on records released in the last few months. Judas Priest’s Invincible Shield, Bruce Dickinson’s The Mandrake Project, and Saxon’s Hell, Fire and Damnation are a few of the most notable metal albums of the year so far. (If you’d like to read more of my heavy metal thoughts, I wrote about the advance singles for all three records late last year.)

The thing about new records by veteran metal artists is that they, more than musicians or groups in some other genres, lack an easy off ramp into style easier on the voice and the body. The high notes aren’t there. The headbanging isn’t as easy. There is no Great American Songbook to fall back on. On Popcast Deluxe (a New York Times pop culture podcast), Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli discussed this issue in relation to rap. The question there, though, is what older rappers have to say. It’s more than a bit tiresome when Jay-Z reminds us that he owns a bunch of stuff, but I can imagine him trotting out the hits on tour in a few years and sounding great. Older metal artists don’t have any trouble with what to say. Death, war, horror, they wear just fine over the decades. These artists, though, struggle to pull off the performances, even (or perhaps especially!) when they’re playing the hits. What happens when gods turn mortal?

Of the three records, Hell, Fire and Damnation is perhaps the best representation of what the band sounds like on stage. The pitch correction is noticeable, certainly, but what record doesn’t have at least a little digital sheen these days? Ultimately, the Saxon you get on record isn’t a million miles off the product you get on the road, largely because of Byford’s commitment to his eminently accomplishable vocal style. His engagement and sense of fun carries the material, not vocal acrobatics. Hell, Fire and Damnation breaks no new ground, but Saxon hasn’t really ever been about breaking new ground. What they bring instead is a genuine sense of glee, something Byford conveys on every track. The members of Saxon want to have a good time playing music that sounds exactly like it did in 1980. At this, they absolutely succeed.

Judas Priest and Bruce Dickinson have taken different approaches to their new records. Invincible Shield, the new Judas Priest album, is pristine and glistening, the digital sheen turned up all the way. Listen to Halford’s vocal performance on the record and you’ll find him pulling off each and every one of the tricks he’s used on albums past. The high notes are there. The screams still shatter glass. Production allows Halford to defy age. Couple that with lyrics that could have appeared on any Priest or Halford album of the last 30 years and you’re all set — one stand issue Judas Priest record. At their best, the songs are great. “Panic Attack” rips, “Escape from Reality” is a fantastic Sabbath-esque stomper, and the title track is a stronger rewrite of the title track of 2014’s Redeemer of Souls. There’s nothing wrong with the record. It just doesn’t have a personality of its own, exactly. Mix these tracks in with songs from 2018’s Firepower and most people would have trouble telling you which ones belong together.

That is not the case for Bruce Dickinson, who opts for few production tricks on The Mandrake Project. He does, however, use vocal takes from across the last twenty years. The end result is a sloppy record, with vocals that range from fantastic to pitchy, powerful to strained, tinny to clear, sometimes over the course of one song. Despite the patchwork production, The Mandrake Project is still tremendous fun. Dickinson hasn’t put out a solo record in 19 years and it is a joy to hear him back spouting the semi-mystic nonsense he returns to in all his solo work. He tries new things, too, from the Deep Purple-inspired “Rain on the Graves” to the stream-of-consciousness narrative in “Sonata (Immortal Beloved).” It’s all a bit ramshackle, with Dickinson’s voice being a real weak point, but he sounds engaged throughout and the high points (“Many Doors to Hell,” “Afterglow of Ragnarok,” and “Shadow of the Gods”) stand alongside the strongest material in his solo catalog.

I like both of these albums. Invincible Shield continues the good work Judas Priest has done to right the ship after Redeemer of Souls and 2008’s misguided concept record Nostradamus. The Mandrake Project revives Bruce Dickinson’s dormant solo career, bringing him back to his own work after what has been a 25 year break with Iron Maiden. I’m glad both of these albums happened and I imagine I’ll continue to enjoy them for years to come. I’m not sure, though, what it means for Halford and Dickinson to keep struggling like this on record. And I wish that either record had more in common with Saxon’s late career work. I want records that enable the kinds of performances Saxon is able to pull off in 2024.

Listen to a few recent live performances by Rob Halford and you’ll notice immediately what sets his live performances apart from his work on record. He’s frequently out of breath. He can’t sustain notes. That’s what the echo effect is for. He can’t remember all of his lyrics. That’s why there’s a teleprompter. His screams are thin now, lacking the body they had. That’s why you hear double-tracked vocals on record and backing tracks live.

Listen to Bruce Dickinson live. You’ll notice that he, too, can get a little out of breath. He’s more flexible on stage than on record, though, letting high notes go or forgoing the running around he used to do in favor of a stance that sees him in a lunge by his microphone, able to eke just a little more power out of aging vocal cords. The strain is still there, of course, the voice thinning out as Bruce tries for the acrobatics of decades ago.

I don’t begrudge either of these men the tools they use. I don’t mind the teleprompters or the echo, the shortened notes or less motion on stage. That’s fine. All of that is fine. What I worry about is what we’re asking them to do. We’re asking them to be gods, to keep on giving and giving on stage. They don’t have to do that. The Saxon path is there. The rap path is there — when rappers age out, they turn to other things. Jay-Z is a professional Jay-Z. André 3000 plays the flute. Pop stars go back to the Great American Songbook. In metal we watch our gods fall apart onstage.