Judas Priest came out of the era that melded Black Sabbath with Led Zeppelin and came up with some of the most creative guitar riffology in history, raising the standards by which any new album will be judged, and Invincible Shield tries to balance their past with multiple career peaks.
Perhaps the largest influence on this album is the 1990 release Painkiller which melded Slayer-style proto-death with the melodic heavy metal for which Judas Priest and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) are famous, but it is balanced by contemporary power metal influences as well as classic Judas Priest such as Sin After Sin.
In one angle, the Priest carried forward from their last album but chord progressions and vocal melodies take lots of hints from Painkiller although they tend to end up on a major key upswing or whole scale like the nearly Evangelical-conservative aesthetics of contemporary medievalist power metal, yet songs fit together like their classic works: witty, clever, and yet fit together like an ancient stained glass window.
Expect the usual guitar fireworks on leads which are cleverly designed like little pieces, repeating themes carefully for centering and then contrast in order to molt context and expose a new harmony within the dominant riff. Riffs fit within the verse-chorus pattern that aims for some summary, transition, or inversion in each half of the song.
You can feel the 1970s, 1990s, and 2010s come together in a smooth fusion on this album that by both song titles and the craftsmanlike care that goes into each part clearly seems designed to be a new career peak for Judas Priest. As a listening experience, this easily keeps pace with their post-1970s material and evokes a new interpretation of their classic era.
