Why A Matter Of Life and Death is Iron Maidens best album

MrKnickerbocker said:
I love Futureal and The Wicker Man is in my top five Maiden songs of all time. But otherwise, I agree.
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Oh I'm not saying that as a negative comment necessarily. I too love The Wicker Man, and Different World even. They found a formula that works for them and they've stuck with it.
 
mckindog said:
For the type of song it is, Different World is an excellent song.
I think most people on here simply prefer longer, heavier songs.
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I find it a little flat, honestly. It feels a bit paint-by-numbers. I love the short songs, but Different World, Wildest Dreams, and The Final Frontier are all missing something. I guess it's a bit of first track expectations syndrome, as I do love Rainmaker and The Alchemist.
 
Different World is alright, but I always find the intro hilarious. It reminded me of my dad calling me for food.
 
I like Different World. It's not the best song on AMOLAD but it's a cool start and has a nice chorus. A bit of a unique structure too, which is nice. And a gorgeous H solo, one of his best.
 
Apart from the solid Wicker Man, all the post-reunion starting tracks have been good but not great.
 
Agreed. Except TFF which was downright bad.
I don't mind it to be honest. It works when starting the album and usually you can expect the quality to skyrocket by the next track (which has actually been true for every reunion album). It's a cool way to sorta warm up the listener.
 
Sat15/TFF is again alright, but to be honest, the experimentation didn't improve the quality of the music, and just felt there for the purpose of being there.

Ideally, what I want from Track 2 on any album is to maintain the momentum from an ideally momentum garnering opener. Children Of The Damned, Revelations, Two Minutes To Midnight, Wasted Years, Infinite Dreams and even Holy Smoke are excellent examples of this. Newer Maiden tend to focus on having decent openers and then skyrocketing it to the level of those aforementioned tracks with Ghost Of The Navigator, Rainmaker, These Colours Don't Run and El Dorado.

Looking back, apart from TAATG and From Fear To Eternity and possibly others that I may be forgetting, the second track on a Maiden album is often very strong.
 
Hmm, thinking about it, for the reunion openers I would go Wicker Man > Wildest Dreams = Final Frontier > Different World. Final Frontier has grown on me since it's release, all the other 3 are fast paced whereas FF isn't and I like that difference, it's simplistic but it works. Might change tomorrow, but right now I'd say I prefer it without Satellite15 on there as well, it's a different piece certainly but I do just think of it as an intro track.
 
I love every reunion opener with the exception of Wildest Dreams.
I'm one of the few that put TFF and DW right there with the Wicker Man.
 
I like the Death on the Road version of Wildest Dreams. The Final Frontier is good but it's the worst on the album. Different World is good too. I honestly don't really like the Wicker Man very much..
 
They're all quite similar in my mind, but I'd probably put Wicker Man first and TFF second.
 
mckindog said:
I love every reunion opener with the exception of Wildest Dreams.
I'm one of the few that put TFF and DW right there with the Wicker Man.
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Just checked the ranking I did a few years ago during the daily song threads run: 33, 34 and 31. :D
And my god is H's solo in Different World a thing of beauty.
 
Ziggyplayedguitar said:
Each to there own, but AMOLAD wasn't my cup of tea, long intros, generally over long songs that don't really get going, mid-tempo and plodding, lacking great hooks. Certainly don't agree its the masterpiece people talk about. No, im just not into the Kevin Shirley albums too much, i like the songs on BNW but not the live sounding/muddy production he is known for.
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absolutely agreed; i cannot fathom how this album is considered a masterpiece. the same problems seem to pop up again and again with the latter day maiden material - the production, the repetition (chorus retardation as maidenslave refers to on his youtube maiden reviews), and most of all, the lack of well written melodies and vocal lines.

for a band with three guitarists, the mixing simply sounds muted; it should kick with all the thrilling energy of an act like the allman brothers band, multi guitar acts. but the guitars sound so sanitised. the drums sound like they were recorded separately from everything else, and the bass and drums rarely seem to meld and mix to create any kind of effective rhythm section.

"a matter of life and death" for me is bereft of melodic hooks for the most part, there are of course exceptions. whereas maiden wrote killer melodies, instrumentally and vocally, that seems to have dissipated for the most part. too many tracks on this album simply plod; similar sounding without much to distinguish and musical ideas decent but not at all to such a high degree to elevate this material to great.

of course its not a surprise to view this kind of reaction on a maiden fan forum, proclaiming it to be a revelatory album, but more mainstream press and more balanced blogs are a tad more informative and fairly written.

i find the album almost unlistenable; when played before or after other great albums by great acts, this album simply pales in comparison. "brave new world" i feel is the best of the latter day style, but from "dance of death" this mundanity has been ever more present. it reached its peak i thought with "the final frontier"; an overlong, tedious record, with some very good ideas buried under extreme musical lenghts.

"a matter of life and death" would be for me one of their poorest albums, along with "x factor", "final frontier", and "virtual xi". a very difficult album to sit through, and its replay value not very high.
 
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