Two: Voyeurs

Ellen Degeneres came out of the closet and surprised almost no one; in fact, it turned out to be a savvy career move. Ex-Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford publicly professing his sexuality, however, is a far riskier venture. Not all Judas Priest fans are homophobic meatheads, of course, but coming out can't have been easy for a metal singer who has already had to face a shrinking fan base. But that disclosure gave Halford an enviable opportunity to reinvent himself. Two is his new project, and while he doesn't back down from intensity, it certainly is a departure from Judas Priest and his post-Priest band Fight. Voyeurs is much like the rest of the music associated with Trent Reznor's Nothing label: Expect layered techno-metal, less dense than Nine Inch Nails and less cartoonish than Marilyn Manson. Halford seems to have matured as a lyricist, if you think moving from balls-out metal bravado to despairing self-reflection is maturing: Lyrics like, "This burning in my head / stops me from being dead / I tear myself in two / That way I never lose," would not sound out of place in a high-school poetry newsletter. But in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, Halford is in the process of a musical rediscovery, and, of course, people still eat that lyrical-self-mutilation shit up, no matter how embarrassing it is to listen to. Give him another year or so, and he could put out some intriguing stuff.