From the beginning this was my favourite song on the TFF album, and it still is. It gets straight to the point with absolutely no fucking around, not the heaviest song on the album but a great rocker nonetheless, another song with excellent guitar soloing on it. A wonderful track. 10/10.
8. This is one of Maiden's coolest intros, ever. It has the old Maiden vibe, like on Killers, songs like Invaders. At first, it was my least fave, but I started to appreciate its simplicity and its cut to the chase purpose and it works a lot for me, now. Janick solo is devastating and I love it. I missed only more intricacies on the instrumental section and it would work pretty great live.
Now TFF has been fully digested into my system, I'm adamant that The Alchemist is the most important track on the album. It is such a welcome break before the 5 epics that follow it; it helps break the album up nicely. Without it, I think TFF would suffer from pretty bad pacing problems when listened to in one sitting. It could have done with another one like this over Man Who Would Be King IMO.
It's easy to hear that this song is written by Janick. He's made a trademark out of incorporating triple guitar harmonies in his songwriting to a much larger extent than the other guitarists. I think this song is meant to give variation to the album - a break between the ballad and the first big, complex, epic thing - and it delivers. However, it's not a real standout song, so I can't go higher than 8/10 for this either.