Jugulator is the only Judas Priest album that has never been released on any major digital media website, due to German independent record label SPV falling under and going bankrupt around 2009.

[5] The lyrics dealt with darker themes than previous releases, including the eponymous mechanized demon which disembowels its prey, and the end of the world in the song "Cathedral Spires".

[1] "Brain Dead" is written from the perspective of a man who, after a tragedy, has lost the ability to move and speak and is therefore trapped in his mind, having been placed on life support.

The footnote in the CD booklet for this song reads "We all have sympathy for those left to care and despair for victims of tragedy but what of the victim himself—trapped inside his body a coffin—unable to move a muscle or blink an eye but aware of the living hell he's enduring and unable to bring it to an end—a man not even a shadow of his former self—a man who wants to be remembered for what he was—not forgotten because of what he has become."

Reaction to the album was divided among those who enjoyed it on its own terms, those who liked the music but would prefer if Halford had sung it, and those who disliked it on all counts.