Something Completely Different

Media section => Music => Topic started by: Trollheart on Jan 18, 2023, 03:52 AM

Title: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 18, 2023, 03:52 AM
(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a7/47/f0/a747f0630282f8eb5e7ca0e03db4601a--iron-maiden-album-covers-iron-maiden-eddie.jpg)

I'm a huge Iron Maiden fan; first metal band I ever listened to and I've loved them ever since. It's predictable, I guess, for a guy who got into metal in the eighties to be a fan of Maiden, but there it is. I'm going to use this thread, then, to waffle on at length about my favourite metal band, and how I'm going to do that is as follows: I'm putting all my Maiden albums into a playlist and shuffling them, and as each track comes up in random order I'm going to write as much as I can about it. Some will be of course songs I know - and probably you know - very well, but others may not be so familiar. I'm not that well up on the albums after Brave New World, so it could be interesting.


But that, of course, is not all. I'm going to try to make this the one-stop-thread for anyone who's into, or interested in getting into, this all but genre-crossing band. Album reviews, specials, profiles, whatever I can cram in about Maiden I will. If you're a fan, this is the place to be. If you hate them, well, it's not.


Feel free to join in, laugh at me, write snide comments, whatever takes your fancy. I might add the solo albums later, though at the moment I'm concentrating on the rather large discography the band has created over nearly fifty years.


Back with whichever track comes up first later!





Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 18, 2023, 01:24 PM
Track title: "Journeyman"
Album: Dance of Death
Year: 2003
Written by: Steve Harris, Bruce Dickinson, Adrian Smith
Subject: Not entirely sure here to be honest
Type: Acoustic ballad
Length: 7:03
Familiar? A little but not much
Rating: 6/10

Now this is an interesting one to kick off with. Maiden's one and only (so far) acoustic song. They don't do many ballads, but this is the only one performed entirely on acoustic instruments, and it closes their thirteenth album, Dance of Death, which is, incidentally, where I stopped listening religiously to the band. I've heard this album a few times only, and nothing on it has ever particularly impressed me, but as this thread goes on and I get to hear and dissect more tracks from it, perhaps that will change.

As usual, Steve Harris's thick pulsating bass is heard prominently, even from the beginning of the song, and it has a nice kind of swaying, almost waltzy feel to it (sounds like there might be violin in there, but surely that would be keyboard? Don't think Maiden ever used violins) and Bruce is in fine voice on the song, not having to push himself as on classics like "Aces High", "Run to the Hills" or even "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Even acoustic, it's still unmistakably an Iron Maiden song: there's just something about their music that instantly identifies a song as being theirs. I suppose that can be viewed as a bad thing, too. Still, this one certainly steps away from their usual bombast and it's nice to hear them stretching and doing something new. It's also interesting that they kept it for the last track on the album, a surprise when you first play it.



Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Comus on Jan 18, 2023, 05:09 PM
Wait are you doing track by track? That's brutal considering the scope of the discography, although a very interesting idea as someone who mostly listens to albums from start to finish, with the exception of the past few years when I kind of fell out of love with music and just had a playlist of 600ish songs on shuffle. That said, there's very few Iron Maiden songs I chose to put on outside of the albums and I feel (at least for their good albums) that is where they are at their best. Cool idea, I will probably steal it for Billy Joel at some point.

When it comes to Journeyman I was actually pretty surprised that Iron Maiden had an acoustic song and I didn't remember it. Horrific (and I mean utterly horrific, especially for a band that has such cool covers usually) album cover aside I remember that I quite enjoyed Dance of Death when I heard it but the only song I can actually place when looking at the track list is the title track, it's clearly been too long since I listened through their stuff too.

Actually listening to the song made me realize i definitely recognize it. It's not bad, not great though and I definitely agree with your assessment.
Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 21, 2023, 03:22 AM
No, didn't I explain in the OP? I've put all the albums into shuffle and I'm taking tracks at random. So it could be something off Killers, then Dance of Death, then Book of Souls, and so on. That way, I can probably be sure of getting not only tracks I know but ones I haven't heard very often, or maybe even at all.
Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 21, 2023, 03:36 AM
Track title: "Can I Play With Madness?"
Album: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Year: 1988
Written by: Steve Harris, Bruce Dickinson, Adrian Smith
Subject: Insanity and magic
Type: Fast rocker
Length: 3:30
Familiar? Yeah I know this one well
Rating: 7/10



Note: although most of you will know many of these songs, I'm going to write as if the reader does not. So if I go into too much detail about "Run to the Hills" or "Phantom of the Opera", just suck it.

Soooooo.......


If you're any kind of a fan of Maiden you know this song. It was the lead single from the concept album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and reached number three in the UK charts, making this one of the most commercially successful of Maiden's albums, with no less than four singles hitting the top ten. There's a real hammering feel about this, a juggernaut of a track with warnings about messing about with forces you can't understand. It's perhaps not unique (I'd have to check) but certainly unusual in being a song from Maiden that opens on an acapella vocal before the music pounds in, and indeed ends the same way. It's not, to be fair, my favourite off this album – I prefer  "Moonchild", "The Evil That Men Do" and "Only the Good Die Young" - but it certainly is a fan favourite, and probably inadvertently helped to give ol' Tipper Gore and her buddies lots more ammunition in their glorious fight against the corrupting influence of heavy metal, with  its allusions to madness, never mind the fact that the song specifically warns against dabbling in the black arts.

Something that this song has, that all Maiden songs up to about the Fear of the Dark era have, and don't really seem to have any more, is a real hook in the melody. It's a song you can sing easily, whereas (allowing my caveat in the OP, when I admitted I am not that familiar with the albums post-BNW) it seems the later ones don't. It could be because they became exponentially longer and more involved, more progressive metal really, became too intricate and involved, but something like "Can I Play With Madness" really puts the "play" into the title. A real fun song.



Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Guybrush on Jan 21, 2023, 08:36 AM
I've heard the song many times as, while I'm no dedicated fan, Iron Maiden hits came on regularly at our drinking parties some 20 years ago. For some reason, I've never seen the music video, so that was kinda fun. I liked the obvious nod or steal from Ghostbusters with Eddie being in the fridge.
Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 21, 2023, 01:22 PM
As an example of how random shuffle can sometimes not be, two from the one album! And, uh, the only other Maiden song to open acapella. Is someone fucking with me up there?

Track title: "If Eternity Should Fail"
Album: The Book of Souls
Year: 2015
Written by: Bruce Dickinson
Subject: Uh, not sure. End of the world?
Type: Epic progger
Length: 8:28
Familiar? Not really
Rating: 4/10

See, this is what I was talking about in the previous entry. Can anyone sing this song? Does anyone even remember it? I bet, the fact that it kicks off the latest Maiden album* while running for nearly nine minutes (okay, eight and a half) probably turned a lot of headbangers off. It's not that I'm saying we metallers have short attention spans, it's just that ... that ... um ... where was I?  Well anyway, it's a pretty atmospheric intro to the opener of their first album in five years, and there are fucking FLUTES in it! Yeah, I know they're on Harris's keyboard, but still. It's not quite "Aces High" now is it? Talk about teasing. It's nearly two minutes into the track before the first proper guitar riffs kick in and the drums make their appearance, and that familiar Iron Maiden chug-a-long beat makes itself evident, and we can relax: this isn't a Dream Theater album after all! Phew!

The point I'm making is that this is nowhere near as immediate an impact as, well, just about any track that opens any of the classic albums. Hell, even Killers kicks bottom from the very first note. We shouldn't be waiting for Maiden to rock out, but we have to. Admittedly, once it gets going it's a decent song, but even now, I can't find a hook in it that will make me remember it, much less sing it. Is this down to Dickinson's solo writing? I don't think so: most of this album is a co-authored affair, and there's only this and the epic-beyond-epic "Empire of the Clouds" that are solo compositions by Bruce. Still, that one is a little hard to stay with too, so maybe. I don't know. At least this gets a kick up the arse in the fifth minute with some good ol' solos, but doesn't that riff sound familiar? Anyone recognise it? I don't think it's a Maiden song.

Anyway, I won't say it's a bad song by any means, but it just doesn't feel like the killer punch the first track on the new Maiden album should be delivering. Too long, takes too long to get going, not limp but not going for your throat so much as asking you to please move out of the way, if you wouldn't mind. I need more aggression from my Maiden, thanks. Oh, and it fades out on the last minute with some sort of mad vocal thing. What the blue jumping fuck, lads?

* At time of writing, duh

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 21, 2023, 01:27 PM
Track title: "The Man of Sorrows"
Album: The Book of Souls
Year: 2015
Written by: Dave Murray/Steve Harris
Subject: Fucked if I know
Type: Kind of mid-paced
Length: 6:28
Familiar? Not really
Rating: 4/10

Ah, so randomness brings us back to the same album as last time. There's something really odd about this track. On Bruce Dickinson's 1997 solo album, Accident of Birth there's a song he penned called "Man of Sorrows". This one only differs in the use of the definite article at the start, but it is a different song. It's written without any input from him, as you can see, and yet, you have to wonder why he didn't say, when Dave and Steve were coming up with a title, "Uh, guys? I have a song called "Man of Sorrows" on one of my albums. Given that mostly or only Maiden fans are going to have heard that, don't you think you should come up with another name for this track?" Maybe he did. Maybe they waved him down and told him to shut up and get back to writing "Empire of the Clouds". But it's weird, Or at least, I find it weird. Maybe nobody else does.

It kind of reminds me of "Strange World" from the debut when it starts. Not completely, but it just gives me that feeling, with the slow jangly guitar. It soon punches in as Nicko's drums set the pace, and it seems like it's going to be what I term a slow cruncher, but then it gains a little speed as the twin guitars kick in, however I couldn't really call this a typical Maiden rocker. At least, not yet: there are six-plus minutes of it. Nice little solo there as it comes near a close; not the sort of thing we've been used to with Maiden, but still nice to hear. Sort of an odd little ending though.


FYI, here's Bruce's "Man of Sorrows", just in case you're interested and want to compare the two.

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 21, 2023, 05:51 PM
Track title: "Rainmaker"
Album: Dance of Death
Year: 2003
Written by: Dave Murray/Steve Harris/Bruce Dickinson
Subject: Not a clue
Type: Fast rocker
Length: 3:48
Familiar? No
Rating: 6/10

A short, snappy song for once. As Maiden's career winds on it becomes harder to find shorter songs and it's nice to have one here that doesn't go through multiple changes or stretch out beyond endurance. "Rainmaker" also has that missed element in so many of Maiden's later songs, a singable chorus, a hook, and of course there's a nice solo in there too. The twin guitar sound Maiden became so famous for is evident here too, great harmony between the two guitars. I wouldn't say Bruce's voice is too overstressed on this, though there's plenty of energy in the song. To be honest, this could have been on Piece of Mind or Somewhere in Time; it almost stands out as an anachronism among the later Maiden tunes. Good stuff. Don't ask me what the fuck it's about though! :D

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 21, 2023, 05:57 PM
Track title: "Alexander the Great"
Album: Somewhere in Time
Year: 1986
Written by: Steve Harris
Subject: Um, Alexander the Great?
Type: Epic cruncher
Length: 8:38
Familiar? Yes, a little
Rating: 5/10

Again, Somewhere in Time, though I like it, is not one of my favourite Maiden albums. I feel it suffers from some very weak tracks, and this is one of them. This is not to say it's a bad album at all, but compare it to any of the previous ones and it's hard not to feel that the boys were beginning to slip slightly on this one. Well, it's hard for me not to feel that way. Fuck you: I don't care what you think. ;) Odd enough for a proghead to admit, but I'm not really a fan of the long, epic Maiden songs, with the obvious exception. I just prefer their snappier, more immediate, more metal songs, in general. I find their epics, especially after Brave New World, seem to wander about a little aimlessly, and it makes it hard to remember them, for me anyway, and so harder to enjoy them.

One thing Harris has been very careful about through Maiden's career is to try to integrate his love of history into their music. Maiden don't tend to sing drinking songs, or songs about women (much), or riding motorcycles (all that often), and you'll find in their lyrics more references to battles, gods, historical figures and events than you will with most metal bands. This of course focuses on the Macedonian general whose empire had stretched across most of the known world by the time he was thirty years old. There's that long introduction we'll end up becoming used to in the future: almost two minutes of it, including a quote from King Philip II of Macedonia, and the intro sounds a little Powerslave-y to me. Anyway, once it gets going it's a decent rocker but I always felt it was a little stilted; some of the lyrics don't seem to scan very well and I find the ending a bit meh. Good buildup in the middle to a decent solo, but is there not too much of the main theme to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in the melody here? No? Fuck you, then.

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 21, 2023, 06:02 PM
Track title: "The Clansman"
Album: Virtual XI
Year: 1998
Written by: Steve Harris
Subject: Scottish warrior clans
Type: Fastish rocker
Length: 9:08
Familiar? A little
Rating: 4/10

Oh lordy! Only speak the name of the album and it shall appear on the playlist! Well, I don't hate Virtual XI (pronounced "Virtual Eleven", for the uninitiated) as much as I loathe The X Factor, but it's definitely second-last on my list of favourites, even Maiden albums I have only heard once, like The Final Frontier. One of the two from what I like to term "the wilderness years", when Bruce Dickinson had left the band to pursue a solo career, and would not return till the new millennium, I mentioned there was only one song I really liked on this album, and this ain't it. Another Steve Harris epic, it opens on a by-now familiar guitar riff (I think I can remember it first being used on "Afraid to Shoot Strangers" off Fear of the Dark, but again I'd have to check). It's about a ninety-second intro before the voice of the man who would replace Dickinson comes in, and to be fair, I've nothing against Blaze Bayley and he does a competent job. No, my contempt for these two albums has not as much to do with the absence of Bruce as it does with the terrible songwriting and the just general lack of effort on both.

It kicks up on the word "Freedom!" and we're off rocking, and yes, it does possess a hook, though whether you would feel inclined to sing it or not is another thing. Kind of a retread in some ways, lyrically if nothing else, of "The Trooper", but not really a terrible effort. Absolutely way too long though for the type of song it is, and you can hear them trying to stretch it out, even more so than my actual favourite – or I should say, only song I don't dislike – on this, "Angel and the Gambler". This album also suffered, I believe, as did The X Factor, from the loss of Adrian Smith, who was always such a perfect foil for Dave Murray. Janick Gers is a great guitarist, don't get me wrong, but I prefer the original team. And while he may be a decent vocalist, Bayley ain't got the presence or character of Bruce. Good refrain in the last three minutes or so, though it does go on for a little longer than necessary and then is filled out with the classic "Whoa-oh-oh-oh" chorus. Not the worst Maiden song by any means, but it can't hold a candle to any from the classic years.
Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 21, 2023, 06:07 PM
Track title: "Running Free"
Album: Iron Maiden
Year: 1980
Written by: Steve Harris/Paul Di'Anno
Subject: Man on the run from the law
Type: Bouncy rocker
Length: 3:16
Familiar? Oh yes
Rating: 5/10

All the way back to the beginning we go, and the debut album, released forty years ago now, can you believe? Back then, Bruce Dickinson was singing with Samson and had no intention of, nor idea that he would be, joining Maiden, and the lead singer was a guy called Paul Di'Anno. You can hear the difference between him and Bruce here clearly; Di'Anno is much rougher, more raw and visceral in his singing. His style therefore suits the early Maiden music perfectly, when it was kind of a synthesis of punk and the emerging heavy metal with dashes of hard rock thrown in. Di'Anno tends usually to snarl the songs rather than sing them, and nowhere does he do this better than on the title track to the second album. But more of that when it comes up.

"Running Free" was, I believe, the first single from the band, and unsurprisingly it made little of a dent in the charts, though did better when re-released years later, presumably on the then growing fame of the band. Di'Anno says it was mostly autobiographical, and looks back to his time as a skinhead. The first thing you hear when the song begins are the bouncing drums of Clive Burr, who sadly passed away in 2013. It's quite a sparse song really, with the chorus really weak, although that could be due to the production. Harris's bass begins its desire to always be upfront in every Maiden song, as it has more or less remained to this day, Harris being one of the most conspicuous bassists since maybe Phil Lynott. There's good punchy guitar too, but Dave Murray is here partnered with Dennis Stratton, who would leave after this album, and there's just not quite the same spark about it, I feel. A decent song, and if I remember correctly, actually the very first Maiden song I ever heard, though at the time I hated it. I do have to admit, when he takes this on live onstage, Bruce can't seem to do the same justice to it that Paul does here. It's just more his type of song. It was a different time, a different style, almost a different band. Di'Anno would eventually be dismissed from the band and go on to form his own eponymous outfit. Maiden would survive his loss, though it shouldn't be ignored that he helped bring them to where they are today, in terms of getting them noticed.
Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Jan 21, 2023, 06:33 PM
All right, I said this was going to be the comprehensive guide to Iron Maiden, and while it's great fun looking at single tracks out of sequence, there's nothing terribly comprehensive about that, is there? So let's look into their albums, and where would we start but at their debut, released forty-three years ago this year!



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Iron Maiden (1980)

In many ways, Iron Maiden were made both by the participation of, and departure from the band by their vocalist. This album and its followup, Killers, a year later, were fine albums, but there was a rawness about them and a certain something lacking, that seemed to prophesy that should things not change, Iron Maiden were going to go down as one of the bands of the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) who, though successful, would soon fade into the mists of its history, along with other bands like Raven, Xero, White Spirit and Trespass. Of course, that didn't happen, and they rose to, and retain, the position of megastars. But you can see from their debut that, though impressive enough for a young band, and showing the signs of being on the cusp of something truly remarkable, the weak link was holding them back, if that's not too mixed a metaphor.

The album starts off with that by-now-famous twin guitar attack but then vocalist Paul Di'Anno cuts in, and his voice is rough and gutteral, and though it kind of suits this album's rawness and menace, you couldn't really see him singing "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", could you? "Prowler" is a good opener, but not that special really, though it certainly demonstrates the versatility of the two guitarists, Dave Murray and Dennis Stratton, the latter soon to be replaced by Adrian Smith. Clive Burr on drums bashes out the rhythm with gusto, and as it ever would be, Steve Harris' bass is there to quietly keep command of the song.

A much more ambitious song, "Remember Tomorrow", penned, it has to be allowed, by Di'Anno and Harris, opens with moody bass and picked guitar, quite similar, it must be said, to the midsection of the much later "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" from "Powerslave". After a low-key intro, Di'Anno goes into overdrive on the vocal, the twin guitars building the tension and power before the song slides back down into what could fool those who don't know it as a ballad. Great use of the guitars on the verses, where many bands would have opted for piano or keyboards, which Maiden seldom used all through their long career. Towards the end the guitar work gets as frantic as Di'Anno's vocal histrionics, and the song ends powerfully and well.

Their very first chart single is next, but I personally consider "Running Free" as more filler material, and there are much better tracks on the album. It does have plenty of energy, great rolling drumbeats from Burr, and a nice little guitar solo, but it doesn't put too much of a strain on the attention, and I feel passes by without any real impression. Still, it was their first hit. It also marks the end of Di'Anno's contibution to the songwriting.  Far, far better is the now-classic "Phantom of the Opera", their longest song for some time, coming in at almost seven and a half minutes. It starts with that iconic guitar riff, then trundles away like a runaway train, and it must be admitted that Di'Anno does a sterling job on the vocal here.

The song goes through a few changes along the way, making it Maiden's first step into progressive metal: it's almost composed of movements, like a classical concerto. A great guitar solo from Dave Murray helps move the song along, then Harris' bass takes the second movement, as it were, joined by the guitars and drums, creating the instrumental section and taking it into what I would term the third movement, where both guitarists rock out with some more fine solos, one across the other in some excellent interplay. The fourth movement then comes when the song goes more or less back to its opening chord structure and Di'Anno comes back in on the vocals to finish proceedings.

It's without question the standout of the album, and would remain for many years one of Maiden's favourite tracks, both by the fans and the band. It's followed by one of their only instrumentals, "Transylvania", a rollicking, rocking guitarfest with powerful drumming from Clive Burr driving the melody on like a steamhammer. Even more rare in future years, up next is an Iron Maiden ballad! With restrained guitar and even soft vocals from Paul Di'Anno, "Strange World" runs almost seamlessly from the spooky, atmospheric ending of "Transylvania" and indeed seems like it might be another instrumental, as there's no singing for almost a minute and a half. Considering how good this track is, it's a pity Maiden opted to not have another ballad for another twelve years, but that was their choice. "Strange World", however, shows Harris could write a slow song as well as, if not better than, any other heavy metal songwriter.

The only song written by Dave Murray on the album is next, and though it's a little raw, "Charlotte the Harlot" would be revisited on 1982's The Number of the Beast. It's a fast rocker, with Di'Anno back at his supercharged best, Murray's own guitar growling through the song as if he wanted to stamp his total identity on his creation. Nice little slowdown about halfway through distinguishes it from tracks like "Prowler", "Running free" and the title track, which closes the album.

I know it's become a staple of the band, and indeed their signature song, but I find "Iron Maiden" a little too raw, somewhat bereft of musical ideas. A lot of the music on this album comes close to punk rock (punk metal?), mostly due to I think Di'Anno's vocal but also the hard, edgy guitar playing of Murray and Stratton, as well as the subject matter for the songs, mostly chosen by Harris. Also contributing to the punk feel of the album was the raw, muggy and as far as Maiden were concerned, totally unsatisfactory production of Will Malone, who after the debut never worked with the band again.

Iron Maiden would release one more album with Paul Di'Anno before firing him and replacing him with Samson's Bruce Dickinson, beginning a whole new era for the band and opening their music up to a much wider audience. From there on, Maiden would not look back, but had they stayed with Di'Anno, or indeed hired someone similar after he had been let go, would we in fact even recognise the name Iron Maiden today, or would they just be a small footnote in the book of Heavy Metal history?

Going on the strength of this debut, you'd have to say that the seeds of greatness were there, it just took a really great singer and a small change of direction to make them flower and bear fruit, but then you should never forget where you came from, and had this album not been recorded there would never have been an Iron Maiden, so we must be thankful and take the album on its merits.

I do think, though, it could have been a very close-run thing.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prowler
2. Remember Tomorrow
3. Running Free
4. Phantom of the Opera
5. Transylvania
6. Strange World
7. Charlotte the Harlot
8. Iron Maiden

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Feb 04, 2023, 02:44 AM
Track title: "Infinite Dreams"
Album: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Year: 1988
Written by: Steve Harris
Subject: Dreams/Foretelling the future
Type: Hard to say: starts slow, picks up, epic rocker but a good headbanger too.
Length: 6:03
Familiar? Not that much, no
Rating: 7.8/10

Back to Seventh Son we go, and the second track on the album, one of three written by Harris solo. I'll probably get stick for this but who cares: I feel two of the three he writes solo are some of the weakest on the album, though the title track is pretty sweet. Still, when he teams up with the likes of Bruce and Adrian I feel that's when the really good tracks come through, like "Moonchild", "Only the Good Die Young" etc. Sometimes it seems Harris needs someone to keep a rein on his ideas, though having said that he is of course a wonderful songwriter, but in general I think he works better in collaboration with another writer.

This song sounds to me like it has a real "Powerslave" feel to it, got a real punch and I like the way it goes through some changes over its – to be fair – not too long run of just over six minutes. I love the way it speeds up in the middle with a big roar from Bruce, and though it does sound to me like they're recycling some guitar riffs and melodies here, it's a great guitar attack and a good finish, shades of "Revelations" from Piece of Mind. Cool.

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Feb 04, 2023, 02:51 AM
Track title: "The Alchemist"
Album: The Final Frontier
Year: 2010
Written by: Janick Gers/Steve Harris/Bruce Dickinson
Subject: Gonna take a wild stab in the dark here and say it's about an alchemist?
Type: Fast rocker/headbanger
Length: 4:29
Familiar? Not at all
Rating: 4/10
This is one of those albums I know virtually nothing about. Like Dance of Death, A Matter of Life and Death and to an extent The Book of Souls, I've heard The Final Frontier just once I think, and even then I don't recall being terribly impressed by it. But maybe I was judging too harshly or hastily. Let's have a listen. Rocks along like a Maiden song of old, anyway; actually sounds a little familiar, so perhaps reusing those riffs again lads eh? Touch of "Aces High", "Two Minutes to Midnight" and other songs in there too. The guitars are smooth rather than biting, the ubiquitous solo is of course there, and yeah, they pack a lot into four and a half minutes. Still not overly impressed though, and I doubt I'll remember it by the time the next track has started.

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Feb 04, 2023, 02:53 AM
Track title: "When the Wild Wind Blows"
Album: The Final Frontier
Year: 2010
Written by: Steve Harris
Subject: The fear of nuclear war
Type: Epic
Length: 10:59
Familiar? I kind of remember it a little
Rating: 5/10
Seriously? Another track from The Final Frontier? And this one an epic, a Steve Harris-penned monster just one second shy of eleven minutes. I half remember liking this though – and as I said in the last entry I was not impressed by the album on my one listen, so maybe this is a good sign – and I know it certainly made some impression on me at the time. Whether that was good or bad, I guess we'll see. Wind sounds, unsurprisingly, to start it off and then a dark instrumental intro which turns into something of a "Fear of the Dark" idea, but in fairness is not too long. It's one of those doomsayer songs, about, I assume, nuclear war. Quite restrained for the first two minutes before it breaks loose, though in fairness again it's just Bruce's voice getting louder; the song basically stays the same for now. The guitars get a little harder, yeah, but not a huge change really.

Good instrumental section around the middle when the guitars fire up and get going properly, kind of a militaristic feel to the melody – rather apt I guess – but it's hard to see how this isn't stretched out way too long. I mean, eleven minutes? No way it needs to be that long. It's the closing track, so maybe they felt like they wanted to make a statement, and it's not that it's a bad song, not at all, but like I said before about Steve, others need to rein him in. This could be eight, nine minutes tops. The guys do fill in the time with some good solos, but a well-written song shouldn't need things to fill it out. Then, again like "Fear of the Dark", we reprise the opening by returning to where the song began. Hmm. Still not convinced really.

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Feb 04, 2023, 02:55 AM
Track title: "The Edge of Darkness"
Album: The X Factor
Year: 1995
Written by: Steve Harris/Blaze Bayley/Janick Gers
Subject: Vietnam?
Type: Slow brooder to fast rocker. Um.
Length: 6:39
Familiar? No
Rating: 4/10
Ah well, it had to happen some time! Here we go with a track, the first track – in this thread, not on the album – from the much and in my view correctly-maligned first album following Bruce Dickinson's departure. I've been unremitting in my critcism of this album, but has that been fair? I haven't listened to it again since it was released, so that's over twenty years now, so perhaps I'll have mellowed towards it, or some of it. Yeah...

It's got a dark, brooding opening anyway, which actually reminds me seriously of Bon Jovi's "As My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms" (shut up; what do you know?) and the vocal when it comes in from Bayley first is low and almost muttered, but then he explodes into life as Nicko's drums pound in alongside the guitars with a sort of staccato beat before the familiar Maiden riffs come in and the song starts to trip along. Blazing solos coming in now as Bayley fades out, coming back in strongly but then everything slows down and the rhythm returns to that staccato thing I was talking about earlier, fading out on almost acoustic guitar as Bayley's voice murmurs the last lines. Okay, not terrible, but a long way from the kind of thing I expect from Maiden.

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Feb 04, 2023, 03:02 AM
Track title: "The Wicker Man"
Album: Brave New World
Year: 2000
Written by: Adrian Smith/Steve Harris/Bruce Dickinson
Subject: Old legends and old gods
Type: Fast rocker
Length: 4:35
Familiar? Yes
Rating: 9/10
Now we're talking! After what I may have mentioned once or twice already I consider two lacklustre albums, Maiden came powering back to kick the new millennium in the teeth, armed with Bruce back behind the mike, Adrian slinging on his guitar again and the band with a whole new sense of purpose. Brave New World was the album that, briefly, showed me that Maiden were not a spent force, though sadly this did not continue and so far as I can see the albums from here tailed off badly till we're where we are today. This one lights the fuse on the bomb that brought Maiden back from the dead, almost, and it's a killer, mixed metaphors notwithstanding.

From the first riffs you can hear a new energy and excitement that has been lacking, especially on The X Factor, and it's great to hear Bruce back in charge. I have nothing against Blaze Bayley, but I was delighted to see the main man back. And he sounds happy to be back too, as he snarls "Your time will come!" And it has. I don't think there's a bad track on this album, and "The Wicker Man" is the perfect way to start it off. Fast, powerful riffs, simple, to the point lyric and of course those solos, but above all, this sounds like a band revitalised, re-energised and, as I said before, crawling out of the grave the last two albums had pushed them into. It could only get better from here on in, I thought joyfully, and as far as this album is concerned, I was right. But on a more general level, I was unfortunately rather overstating the case. But forget that for now and just glory in the Second Coming of Maiden, and try, if you can, not to headbang to this! Hell, I don't even mind the "Whoa-oh-oh-oh"s!

Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Guybrush on Feb 09, 2023, 12:08 AM
Oh man. I remember this very well even though I don't think I've heard it in 20 years or so. It was definitely being played at the parties I went to in the early 00s, probably until Turbonegro released Scandinavian Leather in 2003 and took over the party rock niche :laughing:
Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Feb 13, 2023, 04:31 PM
Time to give those who are unfamiliar with this band of bands a crash course in who Iron Maiden are, and why they're consistently at the top of the heavy metal tree, even when they don't have a new album out, their last, at the time of writing, having been five years ago.

As a band who have lasted through almost forty-five years of the music business, and forty in terms of recorded output, Maiden have gone through some changes, not only in personnel but in their overall sound and their approach to their music. I actually see them as having had four distinct stages, which I will detail below.
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Though there will be few who will  not at least know the name Iron Maiden, it's possible that some of you younger 'uns may not realise that the "classic" lineup we see today is not how it always was, Indeed, of the current band members, only Steve Harris and Dave Murray were there at the beginning.

Part One: Killers Runnin' Free On the Rue Morgue:
Formation and the Di'Anno Years


Formed in 1975 by bass player Harris, Iron Maiden went through a few guitarists, singers and drummers before they came up with what would be their first "real" lineup, under which they would record and release their first ever recording, an EP called The Soundhouse Tapes, which rapidly sold out. Two of the tracks on that EP, "Prowler" and the eponymous "Iron Maiden", would later feature on their first album, which they would also self-title. In 1979 Maiden signed to the huge label EMI, and had two other tracks included on a heavy metal compilation album called Metal for Muthas. These were "Sanctuary" and "Wrathchild", the latter of which would again feature on their debut album for the label.

In 1980 Maiden had the following lineup: Steve Harris (bass), Dave Murray (guitar), Clive Burr (drums) Paul Di'Anno (vocals) and Dennis Stratton (guitar), though Stratton left the band a few months later, to be replaced by Adrian Smith, who remains with them to this day. The album was a huge hit, with its raw power and yet melodic tracks, and Iron Maiden became one of the bands to spearhead the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) which signalled a renaissance of the heavy metal movement in the UK and led to the formation of some major bands.

The debut album featured a scary creature on the cover, a half-skeletal, half-humanoid monster with long spiky hair, who would become the band's mascot and sigil, and would feature, in different guises, on most Iron Maiden album covers. They called him Eddie the 'ead, though he was usually just known as Eddie. In keeping with the theme/layout of each album Eddie would take on different characteristics. For Powerslave, for instance, with its mystical and eastern themes and its title track written about an Egyptian god, Eddie was a pharaoh on the cover, while for Somewhere in Time, with its futuristic setting, he was an alien hunter. Here, he is just seen looking out at you from the cover, standing in a street at night and looking very evil and scary. He looks like he's ready to kill.
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Eddie was the creation of artist Derek Riggs, who would go on to illustrate all the Maiden sleeves and bring his often warped sense of creativity to each new one. One thing was certain: a Maiden cover was never boring! But what about the music? Well, as mentioned, it was raw and powerful, with a double guitar attack that would become the trademark of Iron Maiden, but I personally found the production very shoddy. Notable tracks from the album are "Phantom of the Opera", with its instantly recognisable guitar intro, which found fame when it was used for a Lucozade ad in the 80s. At the time, it was also their longest and most ambitious song, clocking in at over seven minutes and with distinct sections, or movements within it.

Also on the album is "Transylvania", an instrumental, one of very few that Maiden ever wrote. It's punchy, powerful and very much part of the Iron Maiden sound. They also included a ballad on the album, which again would be few and far between as Maiden reached for the heavy metal stardom that would be theirs. "Strange World" features some really nice echo guitar work from Murray and is almost prog rock in its theme of a world without laughter. It's also a very good vehicle for the softer side of Di'Anno's vocals, which apart from this song always seem to be a snarl. "Remember Tomorrow" actually fools you into thinking it's a ballad, but you're soon disabused of that notion as it kicks into top gear and Di'Anno starts screaming.

The album also features, as mentioned, "Prowler" from The Soundhouse Tapes and also the title track, which would become something of an anthem for the band. Their second album, Killers was released the following year, and this time Eddie is seen as a homicidal maniac on the cover, sporting a bloodstained hatchet, and indeed referred to generally in the lyric to the title track. Another old song, the one featured on the compilation album, is included on this album, and indeed after the short opening instrumental "The Ides of March", it's "Wrathchild" that opens the album proper.


This album was very much a Steve Harris project, as he wrote every song on it bar the title track, which was co-written with Paul Di'Anno. The album also features "Murders in the Rue Morgue", based loosely on the Edgar Allan Poe horror short story, and another ballad, the superlative "Prodigal Son", but the title track is the crux of the album, and features Di'Anno in full madman mode, revelling in his narrative as the shadowy killer who "Walks in the subway/ His eyes burn a hole in your back!/ A footstep behind you/ He lunges, prepared for attack!" The guitars on this song need to be heard to be believed. Di'Anno goes out in a blaze of glory, roaring his lungs out on the closer "Drifter", and in fact his scream is the last sound on the album, bar the final guitar chord.


Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Oct 08, 2023, 03:40 AM
Part Two: No Prayer for the Powerslaves, Somewhere in Time: Bruce Dickinson and Global Domination

After Killers Di'Anno was asked to leave the band due to various disputed reasons, and they hooked up with Bruce Dickinson, who had been singing with Samson. It was with him at the mike that they recorded their ultra-successful 1982 album, The Number of the Beast, which shot straight to number one and is recommended as one of the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die in the book of the same name by Robert Dimery. The whole style of the album is different, perhaps due to songwriting being shared, perhaps due to the presence and charisma of Dickinson, or perhaps it was just a natural evolution of the band. But the overall feel of "The Beast" is of polished production, excellent songwriting, powerful and technically-proficient playing and indeed a band who are all on the same page. Possibly the conflicts with first Dennis Stratton and then Paul Di'Anno may have strained the atmosphere during the recording of the first two albums, but there is no such tension evident here.

Featuring songs like "22 Acacia Avenue" (subtitled "The Continuing Ddventures of Charlotte the Harlot", who is seen in a song titled with her name on the first Maiden album), "The Prisoner", for which the band had to gain permission from Patrick McGoohan to use audio clips from the cult TV series in the intro, and of course the two singles, "Run to the Hills" and the title track, this was, in all ways possible, a monster album. "Run to the Hills" shot to number seven in the charts, and is a powerful indictment of the treatment by the White Man of the Native Americans, featuring a killer guitar solo from Dave Murray and some singing which would earn Bruce his nickname of "Air-raid Siren"! The title track, and indeed the album title and artwork, earned Maiden the tag of Satanists, and true to form, the Religious Right in America sought to ban the sale of the album (and all Iron Maiden records, extended of course to other "questionable" metal bands), boycotted the gigs and burned their albums. What was that they said: "Where they burn books (or albums), they will later burn people."
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Laughing at this accusation, but nevertheless hurting from the adverse publicity and the boycotts of and protests at gigs, Steve Harris, as the face of the band, declared that far from being an anthem or prayer to the Devil, "The Number of the Beast" was based on a nightmare he had after watching one of the Omen films, and the track even has a passage from the bible preceding it. But you can't tell the Moral Majority they've got it wrong, and the mud stuck.

Nevertheless, fans and heavy metal pundits alike loved the album, and it still stands for me as one of Iron Maiden's best. It also contains one of my own favourites from them, and indeed a firm fan favourite too, the epic "Hallowed Be Thy Name", which closes the album and runs to just over seven minutes. It tells the story of a man about to be hanged, and his thoughts as they lead him out to the gallows. It's quite an introspective piece for such a heavy song, starting off with doomy church bells (actually referred to in the lyric when he says "I'm waiting in my cold cell/ When the bells begin to chime.") and featuring some great guitar work from both Adrian Smith and Dave Murray.
For the next decade Iron Maiden were prolific in their releases, a new album usually being no more than two years from the previous. In between they of course toured extensively and released some live albums, of which Live After Death, released in 1984, is regarded as their best. 1983 however saw the emergence of their fourth studio album, Piece of Mind, with the obvious play on words in the title. It features this time Eddie in a straitjacket and imprisoned in a "rubber room", with part of his brain missing, ergo the title. Despite the obvious imagery of madness, however, the album did not deal with the subject of insanity: rather, the songs were mostly influenced by or about books or films the lads enjoyed.

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Piece of Mind was the first album to feature new drummer Nicko McBrain, ex-Trust, who is still with Maiden to this day. It only featured two singles, but they were both very successful, just missing getting into the top ten. "The Trooper" is a powerful, rollicking story of the Charge of the Light Brigade, while "Flight of Icarus", with its heavy guitar intro, tells the legend of, well, Icarus. Other good tracks on the album include "Die with Your Boots on", "Where Eagles Dare" (based on the WWII movie) and "Sun and Steel", loosely based around the sword-and-sorcery heroes of fantasy literature like Conan and Kull. There's another epic on the album, again closing it, this time taking as its subject matter the Frank Herbert sci-fi series Dune. Called "To Tame a Land" it runs for nearly seven and a half minutes, and is again evidence of Maiden's dabbling in prog metal, towards which they were sliding closer with every album.
Only one year later and they released perhaps their most openly prog album to date, 1984's Powerslave. While it included "boys-own"-type adventures songs like "Aces High" and "Flash of the Blade", and a return to "The Prisoner" from The Number of the Beast in the song "Back in the Village", it was the two closing tracks that really characterised this album. The first being the title track, written from the point of view of an Egyptian god or pharaoh, and evidenced on the sleeve of the album with Eddie depicted as a huge stone statue like the Sphinx, being worshipped as a god. The lyric tells of the pharaoh/god's reluctance to give up life, as he moans "Tell me why I have to be a powerslave?/ I don't wanna die/ I'm a god, why can't I live on?" but he realises at the song's conclusion that he has no more sway over life than the lowliest of his worshippers, as he accepts "In my last hours I'm a slave/ To the power of death." Not surprisingly, the music is eastern-tinged, to give the effect of being in Egypt.
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The other standout track is their longest to date, the epic in every way "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", based on the epic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It features a great bass solo halfway through that really gives the feeling of isolation and fear, and quotes much of the famous poem in the lyrics. There must have been some trepidation on the part of the band that metallers would listen to a song which runs to thirteen and a half minutes, and moreover, is based on a poem over a century and a half old, but it went down a storm thanks to the heavy riffs, powerful singing and, to be fair, gripping lyric, even if they were half-inched from the poem.
1986 and Somewhere in Time hit the shelves. Different to previous albums, mostly due to the writing of Adrian Smith, it features more long compositions, like "The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner" (6:31), "Heaven Can Wait" (7:21) and the title track, "Caught Somewhere in Time" (7:26). In fact, the shortest track on the album is "Deja vu", at 4:56, and even at 7:26 the title track is not the longest: that honour goes, once again, to the closer, this time called "Alexander the Great", and clocking it at a massive 8:36! Again, despite the cover art depicting Eddie as a futuristic bounty-hunter/cyborg killer, the themes on the album range from madness to history to reflections on life. There are two sci-fi/future themed songs, in the title track and "Stranger in a Strange Land", based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein. With the comparitive lengths of the tracks, there end up only being eight in total.
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You could I suppose say that this was also a very prog metal album, with its long compositions and its varied themes, and very few of the "rock till I drop" songs - although even on their earlier recordings Maiden tended to eschew the generic metal themes like beer, women, fighting and who's the loudest. Some of these would find their way into later releases, though Maiden would more or less continue on the road towards total prog metal with each new album. Somewhere in Time also pioneered their use of the guitar synth, belying a legend that had once appeared on the back cover of The Number of the Beast - "No synthesisers or ulterior motives". With the move towards prog metal, it was perhaps inevitable that Iron Maiden would need to introduce some sort of keyboard sound, and this was how they went about it.
This culminated in what became the pinnacle of their progressive metal leanings, 1988's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, on which the guitar synths were swapped for actual keyboards, played by one Michael Kinney. This album also featured only eight tracks, although the longest, the title track, came in at just under ten minutes, with the next longest, "Infinite Dreams", a mere six minutes. The power and energy was still there, the great melodies and the hooks, and the interesting themes, though many of them were linked or semi-linked in a kind of a fairytale. Some of the better tracks on it, for me, are "Moonchild", the title track, "The Evil that Men Do" and "Only the Good Die Young". It's the first album since The Number of the Beast not to feature an epic closer, with "Only the Good Die Young" clocking in at a mere 4:42.

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It was also the last album to feature Adrian Smith, who left the band to return in 2000 for their triumphant Brave New World, an album I look on as their "comeback" album after years in the metal wilderness, of which more later. Seventh Son also gave Maiden some of their highest-charting singles, with "Can I Play with Madness" going to number 3, the highest they had ever achieved.
Rather ironically, Smith had left the band because he was unhappy with the prog-metal direction Maiden were going in, but as soon as he left the next album, 1990's No Prayer for the Dying changed the musical direction and returned to a more hard-edged, rock/metal sound, with shorter songs and more of them. Despite the fact that it was panned by critics, it did yield Maiden their only ever number one single, in the Bruce Dickinson-penned "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter". There are no songs over five minutes on the album, the longest being again the closer, "Mother Russia" being a paltry 4:45.

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No Prayer is probably the first Maiden album to feature a whole host of sub-standard songs. The likes of "Public Enema Number One", "The Assassin", "Fate's Warning" and the aforementioned "Mother Russia" just don't cut it for me, and although there are good tracks in "Tailgunner" (basically "Aces High" from Powerslave revisited) and "Holy Smoke", with its stab-back at the Christian Right, and of course "Bring Your Daughter...", there's a lot of dross on this album, probably the least impressive of any Maiden album - at least, under the Dickinson regime - I have ever heard. Maybe they needed Adrian Smith's songwriting abilities more than they realised! On guitar, Smith was replaced by Janick Gers, and there were more changes to come in the years ahead.
Things came to a head in 1992, with the release of their ninth album. Fear of the Dark, although superior to its predecessor, was still not a patch on previous opuses. Retaining the short-song format, and eschewing the prog-metal epics for more basic rock fodder, it nevertheless featured themes like the Gulf War, on the Steve Harris-penned "Afraid to Shoot Strangers", a great track which begins slowly and gets into high gear halfway through, as well as the cowboy-themed "Be Quick or Be Dead", which opens the album, but the vast majority of the tracks are still sub-standard, and if I listen to this album at all, it's very much a cherry-picking operation, and there are a LOT of tracks I skip over.

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"Fear is the Key" and "Childhood's End" are decent enough tracks, though both "The Fugitive" and "The Apparition" fail to impress, recalling "The Assassin" from the previous album, and although this is the first Maiden album in some time to feature an actual ballad, "Wasted Love" is, well, wasted really: not a very good song, and adds nothing to the album except a slowing-down of the general mayhem. The best track for me is "Judas Be My Guide", with its soaraway guitar, and the closer, the only long track on the album, and indeed the title track, again written by Harris, and coming in at 7:45. The album is also the first not to feature cover art by longtime illustrator Derek Riggs, and the last produced by Martin Birch, who had been with the band from Killers.
Shortly after the recording of the album, Bruce Dickinson decided he had had enough, and left the band to pursue a short-lived solo career. He would not return until 2000,and in between the band would go through some changes, most bad, and risk losing a large part of their fanbase, before the "return of the king" would take place and sort everything out.
Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Suburban Placeholder? on Oct 08, 2023, 02:38 PM
I Always felt it was a shame that the Killers line up only recorded that one album together.

Adrian Smith really added something missing from the first album, and I guess you could also say the same thing about Martin Birch's production too.
Also I felt Maiden were never really the same band after Dianno & Burr left.

I have bootlegs of both full gigs in Japan that the band recorded and used for their Maiden Japan E.P. with that line up and they were really on fire.
Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Mar 02, 2024, 04:02 AM
Part three: The Virtual X Factor:
 Blaze and the wilderness years


Following the departure of Bruce Dickinson, Maiden were left with the job of finding a replacement for the charismatic frontman. This was no mean feat: Dickinson had helmed the band for ten years, and fans had got used to his powerful presence, and voice, so it was really no great surprise that the idea of someone taking over from him was greeted with mostly scepticism and in some cases outright anger by the faithful. Nonetheless, on October 2 1995, three years after Bruce's departure, Iron Maiden released their tenth studio album, the aptly-named X-factor, featuring new singer Blaze Bayley, recently of Wolfsbane.
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The album was quite a departure from standard Iron Maiden fare, and much different to the last few releases. It was, for a start, a lot darker, something that might be expected given Dickinson's mostly unexpected departure, and Harris returned to writing most of the material, with input from the new guy and the "other new guy", guitarist Janick Gers. I found most of it not to be up to scratch, and whereas Fear of the Dark had suffered from its share of problems, I could find few songs on this album I liked.

It probably doesn't help that the guys turned their usual practice upside-down, having the longest track at the opening of the album rather than closing it, and the eleven-minute "Sign of the Cross" just didn't pique my interest, leaving me with a long time to wait, getting more and more frustrated as the song went on, and on, and on, before the next track up hit my ears. That was "Lord of the flies", and to be fair, I really liked that, more like the Iron Maiden I knew. Following that was "Man on the Edge", the first single from the album, and to be fair it's not bad: kind of reminds me of "Back in the Village" from Powerslave.
It's not that the album is terrible, but given the heights Maiden were capable of reaching (and had reached), this just felt like a very lacklustre album. I also personally felt (and I wasn't the only one by any means) that Blaze Bayley was no replacement for Bruce Dickinson. Oh, he could sing, sure, but to replace THE voice of Iron Maiden they were going to have had to come up with someone very special indeed, and he wasn't it. Always felt to me like he was constantly dealing with (as he probably was) the stigma of being Dickinson's successor, and trying to live up to that. I would not have wanted to have been in his place, that's for sure.
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It was three years later before Maiden tried again, with the release of Virtual XI, the last album they would record with Bayley. To give him credit, the guy seemed by now to have found his place in the band: he sounded more confident, more sure of himself and probably felt like he belonged. Rather ironic then that after this album he would leave the band. My problem with the "Blaze" Iron Maiden was twofold: first, there's no Bruce Dickinson. I only really got into Maiden via Number of the Beast, and then backtracked, and whereas I could tolerate Paul Di'Anno, he wasn't a patch on Bruce. The second problem I have is that in a very real way they seemed to be retreading old ground, taking bits from previous songs and recycling them into new ones.

There was a third problem, although personally I didn't see it as such, but it was something of a surprise to see the sudden emergence, even dominance of keyboards on Maiden albums. You can hear this very clearly on "The Angel and the Gambler", where the guitars are pushed very firmly into the background, with the result that what you get is a very commercial-sounding song, but then Maiden had had great commercial success with singles like "Flight of Icarus", "The Trooper" and "Run to the Hills", to mention but a few. And they had never had to compromise on their sound. Here, they begin to sound more like a seventies prog band than a hard-hitting veteram heavy metal legend.
This album was also the shortest, in terms of tracks, since 1988's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, with only eight tracks, although on overall length it was well up there with the best, at just over fifty-three minutes, yet still nearly twenty minutes shorter than its predecessor. Still, every album to follow it (so far) would be much longer. There's also another point: listening now to the almost ten-minute "Angel and the Gambler", I notice that of those ten minutes, the closing THREE are taken up with the same refrain, with a few guitar solo bits in there, but come on! Did it need to be that long, if all they were going to do was repeat the same line to the end? Like I say, lack of imagination and originality, which had never previously been a problem for the boys.

It's probably quite possible that I'm doing Virtual XI a disservice, as I only really listened to it the once, didn't like it, and am only listening to it for the second time now for this piece, so maybe my opinion would change on repeated listens. The fact remains, however, that every album, from Iron Maiden to Fear of the Dark, I was able to get into on the first listen. That did not happen with either of these, which is why I was overjoyed to hear the announcement in 1999 that Blaze was out, and Bruce was back!
Title: Re: Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden
Post by: Trollheart on Mar 02, 2024, 08:47 PM
Part Four: The Return of the King: A Matter of Soul Dancing in the Brave New World


The return of both Bruce Dickinson and longtime guitarist and founder member (almost) Adrian Smith breathed new life into what was in some ways becoming a tired band who seemed unsure of the direction they were heading in. Janick Gers remained, so that Maiden now had three guitarists, and the new sound was a joy to behold.

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Brave New World was well-titled (although it is of course the title of Aldous Huxley's novel), being released in the first months of the new millennium, and with most of the original Maiden lineup back in the fold. The fans reacted as expected, and sellout tours resulted. The album was critically acclaimed as one of Maiden's best ever, ranking up there with The Number of the Beast, Powerslave and Seventh Son: high praise indeed!

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2003 saw the release of Dance of Death, which while retaining the heavy classic sound of Maiden, expanded on Brave New World's leaning towards longer, more epic songs and complex structures, tipping the scales towards progressive metal rather than outright metal. Although this came as something of a shock to some, it serves to underline and address the problem I laid out earlier, that the Blaze-era Maiden had little in the way of new, original songs and seemed to be falling back on older melodies and ideas, which served to make both the albums he recorded with Maiden seem a little stale and unimaginative.


Now, to be fair to Blaze, there was definitely a need for a change: Fear of the Dark was largely an unremarkable album, and Dickinson's time away seemed to only have done him, and the band, good, giving them a new zest for their music and a whole host of new ideas. It's sad in a way to see Blaze Bayley as a "placeholder", marking time for the return of Dickinson, but the truth of it is that that's how it turned out, even if that wasn't the original intention. Whatever, the re-energised Iron Maiden were going from strength to strength, and Dance of Death was another step along that path to regained glory, with some excellent tracks in "Rainmaker", "Montsegur" and of course the title track.

One important point to note: this appears to be the beginning of a trend in a move away from the depiction of mascot Eddie on the cover. Up to the last album, Eddie had always been on the sleeve, depicted in various guises as already spoken of, but here, he is absent; though a deathlike figure stands in for him, it's not Eddie. The next two albums, also, would be Eddie-less, and he would not make his triumphant return until their, to date, most recent album. This can't have been any intention to reinvent the band with the return of Bruce, as even during the Blaze era Eddie was there, and indeed, the cover of the comeback album shows Eddie surveying his Brave New World, so I don't know why they changed it. Seems a bad idea, but I guess the fans didn't worry about it too much.

The guitars are back in charge! Steve Harris plays keyboards on the album, but they're nowhere near as much in evidence as they were on the previous album. A track like "The Angel and the Gambler" from that album was basically built on the keyboard melody: here, the keys are very much ancillary, a backup instrument to enhance, not take over or change, the sound. As it should be. Even the longer tracks, like "No More Lies", "Paschendale" and the title track, which could have been filled out with synth and keyboard, are instead crammed with guitar. And why not, with three great axemen?

Let there be no doubt however: Iron Maiden were moving, and continue to move, in a more progressive metal direction, away from the harder, "pure" heavy metal of their early days. They added to their sound, expanding upon it and writing longer and more complicated songs, like the title track, and "Paschendale", both over eight minutes long. Of course, Maiden have never been a stranger to epic songs - "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" still stands as their longest ever, at just over thirteen minutes, but whereas albums prior to the Blaze era had generally tended to have shorter, snappier, more commercial songs - the last really long track before X Factor was the title to 1988's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Since the departure, and return of Bruce Dickinson, Maiden tended to shy away from the shorter songs, with seven out of ten of the songs from Brave New World being over six minutes, and six, almost seven of those on this album being of that length ("Montsegur" is 5:50). In fairness, the Blaze albums produced a total of 5/11 for X Factor and 5/8 for Virtual XI, whereas Fear of the Dark boasted a mere 2/12, while not one of No Prayer For the Dying's eleven tracks were over that length, so there has been a definite progression into longer tracks since 1995.

Dance of Death also distinguishes itself from other Maiden albums in being the first album of theirs in twenty years to feature a totally acoustic number, the closer, "Journeyman", very much a departure from form for Maiden, but it works exceptionally well, the more for the fact that it's so unexpected. I think the last acoustic song they did was "Prodigal Son" on 1981's Killers, but don't quote me! Again, no sign of Eddie, even if the soldiers' heads are skulls.
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Another three years later saw the release of A Matter of Life and Death, with a somewhat similar title to the previous album, and no doubt a nod back to the live opus Live After Death. No matter what criticism is levelled at them, no-one can deny that Maiden remain the potent force in British Heavy Metal that they always have been, and despite ageing (as we all do), their music is still relevant and powerful, as opener "Different World" shows in spades. Recent Maiden albums have all tended, if not to be actual concept albums, to have a certain theme running through them, and here it's the horrors of war, driven home powerfully by the artwork on the album cover, showing an army of dead marching before a tank, like a modern version of Brueghel's El triunfo de la muerte.


This album maintains the high ratio of long-to-short songs, with songs over six minutes coming in at 7/11, three of these being over eight minutes, with five, almost six over seven minutes. The song structures became more complex and intricate over the last few albums, and here you can certainly see that in tracks like "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns", "The Longest Day" and the closer, and longest (at over nine minutes long) "The Legacy", but even the shorter, snappier songs have their place. "The Pilgrim" is a great little song, although in my own nitpicking opinion Maiden write too many songs with the word "the" in the title!

"Out of the Shadows" revisits one of their favourite themes, that of prophecies and chosen ones, and "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg" features some of Dave Murray's best work since "Powerslave". The album is certainly dark, though to be fair so was the previous one, with its obsession with and examination of the process of death, but it's also an angry album, and there's nowhere the vitriol comes to the fore more than in "For the Greater Good of God", where writer Steve Harris spits out his contempt for the idea of religious wars. This is also the longest track on the album, beating out closer "The Legacy" by two seconds.

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2010  saw Iron Maiden release their fifteenth album, the critically acclaimed Final Frontier. This was also their longest ever album, clocking in at an amazing seventy-six minutes thirty-six seconds, with the opening track almost nine minutes long and the closer one second off eleven. Not surprisingly then, the ratio is again 7/10, almost 8, as "Coming Home" runs for 5:52. It's also their best effort since Brave New World, perhaps even since The Number of the Beast. Yeah, it's that good! The figure on the cover could almost be Eddie, but I think it would be wishful thinking. Still we await his return...

Opener and almost-title track "Satellite 15... The Final Frontier" lays down the gauntlet, with a multi-layered, complex and intricate composition, introduced on a lengthy instrumental passage more expected of a prog-rock band. It's actually quite understated and restrained, taking almost four and a half minutes before it finally takes off. "El Dorado", on the other hand, kicks right off from the start, with a very familiar guitar riff (from "Wasted Years", I think) and a great vibe.


The more complex arrangements shine through on tracks like "Isle of Avalon" (which has definite echoes of the title track to Powerslave), "The Talisman" and the epic closer, "When the Wild Wind Blows". There's definitely a sense of Maiden maturing, growing and learning new tricks over the course of the last three or four albums. You can of course hear the common themes leaking in, but there's more than enough new ideas there to make every song stand out on its own merits.

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Although everyone - well, all Maiden fans anyway - salivated at the thought of a new Maiden album in 2015, the first for five long years, word coming out of the camp was that there was an epic included on the new album which, lengthwise, would not only supercede "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", but knock it into a cocked hat and possibly kick it down the road too! "Empire of the Clouds", said to be prefaced by a long piano intro - something no Maiden song had ever had before - claimed to be in the twenty-minute range! Probably nobody believed it, and that wasn't quite true, but it is a monster. And speaking of monsters, Eddie is finally back!

Returning the band to the top of the tree, and showing them at the top of their game even after such a long time away, The Book of Souls, the first ever Iron Maiden double album, shot straight to number one in over twenty countries. It certainly was worth the wait, showing that a band who have been together and recording now for almost four decades can still release an album that blows the competition to hell and back. Opener "If Eeternity Should Fail" begins almost acapella, very proglike, with a droned vocal from Dickinson, whose voice has never sounded better, but soon kicks up, while "Speed of Light", the lead single that preceded the release of the album, is back to Maiden headbanging basics, as is "Death or Glory", their third (so far as I can remember anyway) song about flying, this one concerning the exploits of the infamous Red Baron.


The songs mentioned are relatively short and snappy, but that doesn't mean there's no room for epics, as the title track (over ten minutes)and "The Red and the Black" (thirteen) show, but of course, as foreshadowed, the real epic is in the closer, the eighteen-minute Dickinson-penned "Empire of the Clouds." As promised, it does indeed begin with a long acoustic piano intro, and relates the story of the crash of a British airship, an event of which I assume most of us were unaware, and probably don't really care that much about. It's a fine song though, but eighteen minutes is asking a lot from the attention of a metal fan, and I feel it might be slightly overlong.

Nonetheless, it can't be denied that this album, which could have been a mistake, or, worse, phoned in (though when have Maiden ever done that?) proved to be a triumph, a favourite both with the fans and the critics, and shows us there's a whole lot of life left yet in the band, and that any young pretenders who are waiting for them to fall off their throne are going to have a very long wait.


All through their career Iron Maiden have led the field, turning out classic album after classic album, building on their fanbase, playing bigger and bigger venues and opening up the world of heavy metal to successive younger generations. There are few metal bands around today who would not admit to owing at least a little of their success to the venerable elder statesmen of heavy metal, whether it's that they listened to them when younger, or they influenced their style, or even just showed that a bunch of guys from London can scale the heights of worldwide fame with nothing more than their innate talent and some perseverance.

It would be wrong to say Iron Maiden created heavy metal - of course, it was around, though mostly known as hard rock at the time - long before their arrival. But what is in no doubt is that they were one of the shaping forces behind metal, indeed behind rock, and remain so to this day. After almost five decades together, Iron Maiden show no signs of slowing down. They've had their problems, they've been through their changes, but they've come out the other side stronger and more potent than ever before. They've innovated, moved with but not been shaped by the changing trends, and have always remained true to themselves, their fans and their own unique sound.

What was it Ozzy Osbourne said? You can't kill rock and roll? Truer words were never said, and Maiden go from strength to strength, proving that good old-fashioned honesty and hard work is sometimes all you need to make it in this world. Lessons some other bands would do well to take to heart.

Long live the Beast!