Vaenyr
Ancient Mariner
What an unorthodox tune. The acoustic bass intro/solo is a neat oddity. Not the greatest thing ever, but it sets the stage, I suppose. Could've edited it out or replaced it with something different and it wouldn't have meaningfully impacted the song. The main riff right before the verse and its variation for the verse is badass though. Really love the modal interchange and the creative guitar work during the chorus. I also really like how Blaze sounds throughout the song. Would've been fascinating to hear a version with Bruce.
We get a bit of phrygian, before changing gears for the solos. This part of the song has an almost oppressive feeling to it, which fits the theme of the lyrics exceptionally well. After that a few repetitions of the song's title supported by a beautiful clean guitar tone and then some distorted lead guitars in between. Really effective bit of songwriting there.
Back to the verse, the chorus and a lovely and abrupt ending, fitting perfectly with the theme. The end single-handedly raises the score of the song by 1, it's such a cool and creative choice, not usually seen in Maiden songs. In summary, 8.
We get a bit of phrygian, before changing gears for the solos. This part of the song has an almost oppressive feeling to it, which fits the theme of the lyrics exceptionally well. After that a few repetitions of the song's title supported by a beautiful clean guitar tone and then some distorted lead guitars in between. Really effective bit of songwriting there.
Back to the verse, the chorus and a lovely and abrupt ending, fitting perfectly with the theme. The end single-handedly raises the score of the song by 1, it's such a cool and creative choice, not usually seen in Maiden songs. In summary, 8.