Bruce Dickinson

At the end of the day, I am just happy we are getting new music from Bruce. My hope is that the that album will be at least as good as Tyranny of Souls. From the tracklist, I am really curious about the 9.51 min final track.
Same. There are quite a few longer tracks on there so I'm really curious to see how that'll turn out.
I think @Kalata's hope for more solos and intersting instrumental sections will come true, unless Bruce wrote an unprecedented amount of lyrics.
 
For those who don't know what the dates (1941-1968) on the coin on the Mandrake Project artwork are about, I think they are linked to this book :

Abstraction (1941-1968)​

Jochen Gerner (Scénario, Dessin)

Abstraction (1941-1968) continues Gerner's reflections on popular comic strips from the Cold War era, and adds to this exploration an aesthetic question which ties in with the issues of American abstract expressionism from the same 50s and 60s.

 
Afterglow is either a 7 string in B Standard or a 6 string dropped way down -- the lowest Bruce has gone before is down to A with King In Crimson and Trumpets of Jericho. He's had E standard and Drop D across his other material as well, I wonder what the bulk of the new album will be in, tuning wise.

When they played King & Trumpets live Roy Z said that they used pitch shifters on guitars in Drop D to make, essentially, Drop A. As a 7 string player I'm hoping it's more of that and less of pitch shifting.
 
Same. There are quite a few longer tracks on there so I'm really curious to see how that'll turn out.
I think @Kalata's hope for more solos and intersting instrumental sections will come true, unless Bruce wrote an unprecedented amount of lyrics.
One of my favorite from the last album is Navigating the seas of the sun and so I wouldn't mind a few acoustic sections or ballads. As somebody mentioned, Rain on the Graves might be it. I also think this will be a heavier album than Tyranny of Souls judging from the first single, which is great.
 
I feel the same way. Hey, man, if you disable this, twiddle that knob to the max, of course, if you have those great headphones and that super duper audio system.... Then, my friend, you will be able to enjoy newest Maiden/Bruce album. BULLSHIT. I have no such problems with the old albums. None of that shit. All albums do sound good/decent even on shittiest device. F****
Yeah what the fuck, I'll have to concur. Bruce is the singer in a band that historically had immaculate production to the point other bands were envious of what Martin Birch could do even with live recordings. Bruce's own solo albums to my ears are well produced given the limitations around them until Tyranny of Souls where no such limitations should've existed and yet the album sounds far worse than The Chemical Wedding or Accident of Birth despite having the same producer. This one seems to be continuing the trend.

I have some ancient, likely sourced from a lossy mp3 version home-made CD of Piece of Mind that I've lately only ever listened to through a crappy pickup stereo with tinny speakers lacking any sort of Bluetooth connectivity, and it still sounded pretty good once you cranked it. Meanwhile I have a custom fucking EQ profile setup for TBOS on my PC for a copy that's been edited in Audacity to add a little reverb and it still sounds like a bunch of demos. What happened?
 
I liked the Eternity demo. I liked some of the guitar arrangements better than in the original, drums were obviously weaker, but it was an interesting listen. I still think the song is massively overrated and that the chorus is repeated way too much.

As for Afterglow - really liked it, like the production and the fact that there's almost no solos. Sounded really modern which I like, hoping that the whole album is like it.
 
Bruce was at some event in Brazil. He spoke about The Mandrake Project. Lazarus will clash with Necropolis. Also he talked about comics.


Thanks for sharing this. According to Bruce, the 12 graphic novel episodes will be released over 3 years and would diverge from the album.

Looks like this is going to be Bruce’s own version of Trooper beer.
 
Afterglow is either a 7 string in B Standard or a 6 string dropped way down -- the lowest Bruce has gone before is down to A with King In Crimson and Trumpets of Jericho. He's had E standard and Drop D across his other material as well, I wonder what the bulk of the new album will be in, tuning wise.

When they played King & Trumpets live Roy Z said that they used pitch shifters on guitars in Drop D to make, essentially, Drop A. As a 7 string player I'm hoping it's more of that and less of pitch shifting.
I imagine it was easier to get Adrian to play a guitar with bass strings than it was to get him to switch over to a 7 string. If it’s just Roy Z a seven string seems more likely. Besides, I guess if they play it live Roy Z will need a 7 in order to accommodate the entire range of the song as there are some high E bends in the instrumental. Bruce also sounds fantastic with the lower key ( b so I’m sure most of the album will be in that range.

So far the new material sounds doable with one guitarist. Honestly double tracking guitars has been a thing the entire history of Metal and there have been plenty of one guitar bands that do fine live despite recording multiple guitars in the studio. I think it’s going to be a lot less noticeable than people are expecting, prob just won’t get songs that have intricate harmonies or call and response like The Tower, and even then the keys can fill that role nicely.
 
Well, after numerous listenings of the new single by our favourite singer, I have to change my mind a little bit : I begin to love this track. Especially after having listened to Tyranny Of Souls. Afterglow is the continuity of the last Bruce album of 2005, for sure.

That’s exactly what happens. The more you listen the more you like the track. Had the same thing with Senjutsu.
 

Towards the end:
"--the comic that got turned into a video, which I didn't think was possible for the budget, but obviously it was, so um... and we're gonna be to shooting another one shortly--"

So there's definitely more cheesefest underway!

Bruce goes all out with milking this thing, but at least he seems to be pretty excited about the whole thing and honestly, I'm on board with all that. :D
 
Towards the end:
"--the comic that got turned into a video, which I didn't think was possible for the budget, but obviously it was, so um... and we're gonna be to shooting another one shortly--"

Bruce goes all out with milking this thing, but at least he seems to be pretty excited about the whole thing and honestly, I'm on board with all that. :D
Yes. And now he is going to England to shoot the video. He said this - here. It will most likely be released on January, 17th when the second part of the comic will also be released. He revealed some pictures from it and I guess they are related to the 2nd single, ''Rain On The Graves''. It seems William Blake will be involved in the theme of this song, and maybe in some other songs as well. I thought Bruce wouldn't touch this theme again.
Agreed with your last comment.

And here he talks about the sound of the album (Atmos) and that a lot of the songs benefit from it. He wanted to have a particular production for this album. He describes it as a flat sound but with lots of layers and keyboards and it moves the things around. ''Some songs sound great''.

In the first clip, he used some kind of a dark garden as background during his speech - and I think it would have been a cool background for the album cover, although it can't be seen well enough.
 

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Towards the end:
"--the comic that got turned into a video, which I didn't think was possible for the budget, but obviously it was, so um... and we're gonna be to shooting another one shortly--"

So there's definitely more cheesefest underway!

Bruce goes all out with milking this thing, but at least he seems to be pretty excited about the whole thing and honestly, I'm on board with all that. :D
Behold!! The next video is Cheese on the Graves.:D
 
Maiden to me feels inspiring and fresh, like they want to create music. Priest sounds like a job.
The inspiring and fresh vibe comes mainly from the songwriting, but the production can help a lot for that. Steve is the ''big key''!
Afterglow is the continuity of the last Bruce album of 2005, for sure.
I agree.
I have strange idea that this album is only first and there will be another one about dark adventures of Necropolis.
Why not. It depends on the success of the comics and the album. Bruce said the comic is a trilogy with 12 volumes for 10 songs. Hmmm. Let's not forget that he wrote around 20 songs for TMP. And he has lots of leftovers from 2005. It's really odd that the album won't have any bonus songs.
As for the Necropolis/Protagonist discussion: The video hints at time travel or alternate dimension shenanigans.
This.
Best part of the song, unfotunately too short
One of the best parts for sure.
This song had the promise of Book of Thel II but needed a stronger instrumental mid-section with a longer solo. I wish Adrian had been on this album because Roy Z and Adrian combo were fantastic on the earlier albums
I thought that too. But for that he needs a 2nd guitar. I have to say I love TOS with 1 guitar.
At the end of the day, I am just happy we are getting new music from Bruce. My hope is that the that album will be at least as good as Tyranny of Souls. From the tracklist, I am really curious about the 9.51 min final track.
Always this.
I'm hoping for a song like The Chemical Wedding and instrumental section like the one on The Alchemist and Kill Devil Hill. To me those are MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. Truly CELESTIAL.
I expect that.
In this magazine, he reveals details about the concept, story and the album cover. Cool. I hope we can read it.
 
Well, Tyranny Of Souls might've only had one guitarist, it wasn't written as a one-guitar record though. Most songs have two distinct guitar lines (not talking about double tracking which is an industry standard), often even more (harmonized riffs in Abduction, the second and third choruses of the title track with the harmonized leads over the riffs, etc.). I'm sure the new album will be the same.
 
Albeit too early to say, I feel the Mandrake Project could have been a trilogy covering all 12 episodes of the comic, released each year.
 
Same. There are quite a few longer tracks on there so I'm really curious to see how that'll turn out.
I think @Kalata's hope for more solos and intersting instrumental sections will come true, unless Bruce wrote an unprecedented amount of lyrics.
Yeah. I mean, that's one of Roy's main things. Riffs too, ofc. Solos in metal are simply a must. Bruce will always shine. Now, for more longer and melodic instrumental sections I'm not sure, but given the length of some songs, they should be there. Not that every song needs it, though.

Afterglow Of Ragnarok is probably Roy's shortest solo on a Bruce song? If it was longer, I wouldn't miss a melody.

If we take as an example the only songs from his last 3 albums with no melodic interludes (short or longer), they are:
Soul Intruders (but has a longer solo)
Devil On A Hog (long solo again)
Believel (but has a different interlude)
Trumpets Of Jericho (but has more solos)
Machine Men (but has a different interlude)
Freak ... seriously, it should have been called Dark Secrets!
Starchildren
The Magician
Welcome To The Pit

So not that many. Btw, only 1 song from TOS is without a solo.
 
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The saga of annoying my wife continues. I have now changed the background on her phone from a picture of our beautiful two year old to a picture of ‘Terminator Bruce’.

To be fair, I do this regularly when there is a big Maiden related release. Before TWOTW came out, I kept putting the Belshazzar’s feast posters up everywhere and I kept asking her if she had an invite.
 
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