Brighter Than A Thousand Suns

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How good is Brighter Than A Thousand Suns on a scale of 1-10?

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    49
Top 10 song for me, would be my favourite off this album (my third favourite album, by the way) if not for FTGGOG.
 
Great song, but not quite close to perfection. The vocals and music don’t quite sink up, and that faster bridge is decent but not outstanding. Does have a lot of weight though, but I currently rank it #7 out of the album’s songs.
 
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An obvious 10. This could be the best reunion song and if I’m not wrong it’s a Top 10 on Maidenfans.com, August 2021 edition. I have already commented here since 2006 so I won’t say anything else other than I find Janick’s solo exceptional and I tresure the only solo collaboration with Adrian something I discovered recently thanks to @Forostar.
 
Cheers @____no5 The original discovery of this unique feat was made by a member called kwok fu seng.
kwok fu seng said:
one of the headbanging-epic out of AMOLAD, hopefully this isn't the first (and last) Maiden track that featured Smith/Gers guitar solo! while almost all their songs having either Dave/Jan or Adrian/Dave or triple guitar solo i.e Dave/Adrian/Jan or just one individual solo, this is imho, sure the 1st successful break-the-rules in Maiden song ever at least in their guitar solo department!

p/s: sorry for me stinking english!
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Forostar said:
It was indeed the first and (as we speak) only time they did this. Let's see if H and Jan will do that again on the next album.
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And it still is the only time they did this. :)
 
Forostar said:
Cheers @____no5 The original discovery of this unique feat was made by a member called kwok fu seng.


And it still is the only time they did this. :)
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Wow, a Taiwanese fellow? Maybe from US though.

But @Forostar, I see the above was in These Colors Don’t Run thread.
So who was then the originator?
Myself I became aware for the uniqueness of Adrian -Janick partnership quite recently in your thread. Initiated by another member, fellow @Smither.
 
I think these threads had some weird fuck ups in a merging or migration process or something. Anyway, it is the Brighter Than Suns thread. :)
Kwok fu seng was the originator, and he mentioned it in 2009.
 
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7.

Brighter Than A Thousand Suns is a good song that explores the heavier, riffier side of Maiden in a way that felt quite novel at this point. Indeed, if I was basing my score on the main verse riff, this would be easily higher. I'm a fan of the solo leading into the faster section as well. I do think the song has some issues though; this is not Bruce's best vocal performance and the transitions don't always stick the landing.
 
Almost perfect both heavy and progressive and both epic-y and straightforward track, they've really pumped a lot into this one and lyrically it's among their finest. I don't get why the entire cycle repeat at the end, albeit the last chorus being more riffy than others for dynamics, it's not necessary to drag us back all the way where we've already been. 9
 
8 - What a monster.

That off-kilter, slightly nauseous lurching main riff, the crush of the bridge riff between verses, the deceptive disassociation of chorus section and a monumental lyric combine to make this - bar none - the heaviest track in the catalogue.

The band does a stellar job of expressing the enormity of the Manhattan Project, bridging the threat overhanging us, the hubris of its creators and the itchy sense of panic it has created.

This is a song that deserves mad respect from a critical perspective, but loses a few points for me because I can’t say I frequently return to it. They did their jobs too well, it’s too oppressive to ever be considered a favourite.

Fantastic piece of art though.

(8.4)
 
10/10

A crowning achievement for the band. This is a ferocious, stomping piece that lives up to the harrowing subject matter and then some. Is this the heaviest song in the catalogue like mckindog proposed above? Hmm, certainly top 3 in that field. I once listened to this song while watching silent footage of the 1955 atomic tests in Nevada, which gave the song a sense of power that was absolutely terrifying. For what it's worth, that's a phenomenal feat.

Indeed, this is in my top 10 for the band.
 
Many songs have been written about the bomb (including some by Maiden), but I’m not sure if any hit as hard as Brighter Than a Thousand Suns. The riffing on this song is devastating, one of the heaviest Maiden songs of them all. Bruce’s delivery of the lyrics make it one of the best performances of his career. You really feel drama. People are going to criticize the repetitive out of the darkness chorus on the grounds that it is repetitive without taking into account the content, but this is how you make an effective chorus. The way the music builds underneath the vocal, the way Bruce varies his delivery, the build of intensity. Awesome stuff. By the way, another top lyric from Bruce. Vivid imagery, and a pretty plain depiction of the consequences of man’s achievements.

It’s rare that we get a Smith/Gers solo combination, but it works perfectly on this track. Adrian plays a melodic and melancholic solo while Gers’ more manic style illustrates the chaos that would erupt if Oppenheimer’s war with the sun got out of hand. A wonderful marriage of music and lyrics. 10
 
Oh shit, those verses are godly, both musically and lyrically. Some of the very best Maiden lyrics here. The chorus is one of the letdowns of the song, alongside the fast verses which may or may not be a more controversial opinion, but I still like them! Solos are absolutely perfect. I'll be a little harsh and give it 9, but you know it's not dropping one more point... Classic from the album.
 
Zare said:
Almost perfect both heavy and progressive and both epic-y and straightforward track, they've really pumped a lot into this one and lyrically it's among their finest. I don't get why the entire cycle repeat at the end, albeit the last chorus being more riffy than others for dynamics, it's not necessary to drag us back all the way where we've already been. 9
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But why a 9 then??
 
Because I need a mechanism to express dissatisfaction with arrangement choices. For me, it is a clear cut con on a wide variety of reunion material and since said arrangement choices did not exist in the 80s, just leaving it be wouldn't be fair to that era.

One of the things I admired about Maiden from the get go, was the way they end songs. Current Maiden doesn't end songs well. They pretty much drag you down, IMHO.

Although they claim they don't go specifically for long albums with long songs, they do it all the time, and they need to do it because that's just the way the things are set for them. When you take that as a fact, then you realize that copy pasting intro to outro and 3rd chorus in double time is a very lousy way to fill up their desired album runtime.

Also why 9 and not 9.5 or whatever is because I want to utilize the full range of scores this time around. The scores are Maiden-centric they don't reflect how something compares to 'being a good song'. 10 is absolute perfection.
 
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