Jadukor
Can I play with Agnes
I would ask you to produce my album if I was making one. Brilliant breakdownIn case anyone who's waiting for the album to release and would like some in-depth descriptions of the songs, I took the time to do so. I tried to keep my opinion out of it as much as possible and focus more on stuff like structure, effects and lyrics. I skipped the singles since everyone can listen to those.
The song starts with with a rhythm guitar in the left channel playing what will be the riff for the chorus, while the bass drum hits steady quarter notes. On the second time through this riff the guitar in the right channel enters and the drums hit the toms on the off beat. This section, along with one later in the song, will be perfect in a live setting and naturally suited for "hey, hey" chants by the audience. The rest of the instruments and the synths with a hammond organ sound enter, giving the thing a 70's rock vibe.
The verse has a steady 4/4 beat for the drums, the guitars are slightly distorted but the entire thing dialed back the intensity. Bruce sings in his lower range, there's still a bit of organ.
Bruce shifts to his high range for the pre-chorus, the drums hit a bit harder and the organs are more prominent as well.
The first chorus plays with the same riff as the one in the intro. Afterwards it goes directly into another verse, this time with some off-beat violin synth stabs. Pre-chorus and chorus again. The chorus vocals are in his higher range, there's a lower harmony vocal throughout. The second chorus plays two times, but with different lyrics for the repeat.
The song goes into half time. The rhythm guitar uses the same effect as the rhythm guitar on the final minute of The Alchemist. There's a slow guitar solo here. On the second repeat Bruce enters with vocals. There's a third repeat and we return to the intro riff with the off-beat toms to fire up the audience. Another double chorus follows, the second half features a quiet lead guitar.
The riff itself repeats two more times, while a short solo is played (think of the ending leads in The Evil That Men Do or Wasting Love) and Bruce sings "The many opening doors to hell" twice, once alone and another time with a harmony, ending the song.
Atmospheric synth pad, the bass plays steady B 8th notes, after a couple of measures the acoustic rhythm guitar enters which only strums single chords. After a couple of run throughs the "western" part starts. The acoustic guitars essentially gallop, a clean guitar plays a western/cowboy movie style melody, the drums play a regular drum beat and there is some percussion in the form of bongos, which sound very good and properly recorded for anyone who finds the drum sound to be too digital. After a second repeat of that the distortion guitar enters and the bongos are gone. This is the chorus riff.
After that we get the intro to the verse riff, which takes a bit of getting used to. It's a chromatic riff, where the guitar plays the root power chord, then goes up half a tone implying phrygian, but then goes up another half tone before going down a step. Essentially root, minor second, major second, minor second. Incredibly dissonant sound. It's reminiscent of the James Bond progression, but instead of doing it on the fifth it's done on the root. The bass plays the same note throughout.
The guitar drops away, only bass and drums continue and Bruce starts singing a melody that follows the dissonant chromatic riff in a semi-high register. After a couple of repetitions the guitar plays along.
After that straight into the chorus, which repeats "We're Resurrection Men" on lines 1, 3, 5 and 7 of the 7 lines of the chorus, while lines 2, 4 and 6 sing something else. It's done over the riff mentioned earlier that played after the western melody.
The song shifts entirely, with a heavy tempo change slowing down considerably and going in a stoner or groove rock vibe. First run through the entire riff is without Bruce, only drums, guitars and bass. The second time Bruce enters with some familiar lyrics sung in a slow hard rock style:
This section continues once more with new lyrics. Bruce stops and we get a variation of the riff with very prominent bass guitar. Another repetition of the previous riff (with different lyrics and ends with the line "My name is Lazarus, I raise the dead"), once more the riff with the prominent bass plays.
After that follows a sudden transition with another massive shift and we get a reprise of the intro, only that Bruce sings a few lines over it this time. Western lead section repeats. Instead of the chromatic riff this time it leads directly into the chorus.
After the chorus is done Bruce continues singing "Resurrection Men" a couple of times but this time over the chromatic riff and the song ends with a final strum of the guitar.
This one starts with the chorus riff. Acoustic guitars strum in the background, distorted guitars play along and the keyboards play a prominent melody with a string ensemble patch.
After that we get the verse, drums, acoustic guitar, bass, piano and Bruce in his midrange with a pretty creative vocal melody. The chorus plays over the intro riff with Bruce in a bit of a higher register (except one line which is in an even higher register).
A variation of the verse with different piano accompaniment continues. After that we get the chorus again, which similar to Afterglow Of Ragnarok is in Dorian for most of the part, but plays the natural sixth at the end, an F major in this case.
After this part we get one of the coolest parts of the album which sounds like straight from Blind Guardian's Wheel Of Time. There's a lot of percussion (excellent sound) with a string ensemble keyboard patch + some sitar and other sounds in the background playing the main melody. It sounds very oriental/arabic. The guitars play some leads over this as well.
We get a transitional section in a different key with bass, drums, background synth in phrygian and Bruce singing "over and over, over and over" a quick guitar lead and back to the chorus.
This time every second line is in the higher register. The chorus gets repeated another time. Bruce sings the final line and the song ends on an unresolved synth note.
This one starts out identical to the Maiden version, including vocals from 2014, but the melody is played by a real flute instead of a synth and the background synths are a bit toned down. The entire things has far less reverb and delays than the Maiden version.
Four china hits introduce the same melodies and section like IESF, but in a slower tempo. The old lyrics and a Bruce from 2014 are still heard. The guitar work is a bit different but no massive differences. The second verse was recorded later and ends with a couple repetitions of "lose your mind" before going into the new chorus.
The lyrics have changed to:
After that it goes directly into the instrumental section. Instead of Nicko's tomrolls we get a tom and bass drum rhythm. Once the guitars enter a guitar solo starts as well. We get some harmonies in the backing guitars as well. After two run throughs the focus shifts to the synth and a keytar solo with some guitar leads overlapping here and there.
We return to the main riffs, while the lead guitar plays a bit more over the other guitars.
After that it's the chorus again, but this time with backing vocals by Bruce in his low register singing "Oooh".
The chorus gets repeated and the flute adds some melodies, almost like an ending solo.
Bruce sings "Eternity has failed" twice, before the song continues to the outro which is the same as the Maiden version, but there's only an acoustic guitar, some atmospheric synth, a snare drum that plays a bit of a marching rhythm a couple of times. Bruce only says "Good day, my name is Necropolis. I am formed of the dead", the flute has one final run and the song quickly fades out.
The song starts with a drum beat that hits the toms in the beggining of each measure, the bass guitar plays the root note constantly but has some distortion this time. It's followed by the main riff (which is also played for the verses), which is almost identical to the riff that starts at 00:10 in Freak, with only the fourth beat of each measure being different. This time it's in D minor and a bit slower.
Bruce starts in his mid high lyrics singing over this. We get a pre-chorus with a lot of tritones, before going into a chorus that could be from Skunkworks. Huge open major chords and an anthemic but simple vocal line.
Back to the verse, pre-chorus and then chorus once more. Then back to a variation of the intro riff, but with chugging rhythm guitars and a distorted lead guitar playing a melody in D mixolydian a couple of times. Then a shredding guitarline introduces a quick solo, the drum beat changes, the rhythm doesn't and some choir keyboards are in the background. The solo technically finished, the Freak riff is played again, and some long lead notes are faded in again and panned from left to right, back and forth a bit like the stuff Adrian does in Lord Of Light around 5:40, but not such piercing notes.
We go back to the pre-chorus and then back to the chorus, but this time with a very prominent lead guitar and the chorus gets repeated a second time with different lyrics.
The final minute is again the chugging guitars, intro drum beat, choir synths and a noodling guitar over that. While this continues we get a bit of a drum solo, the bass plays some fills as well and the song finishes with some mechanical synths as well as the choir.
The song has a very short intro (which is used as a transition throughout the song) and basically launches immediately into the verse. In style very similar to the verse after the first chorus in Man Of Sorrows. Drums, bass, piano and vocals in Bruce's mid range.
After that we get to the chorus:
The chorus is in the mid range as well (and in my opinion very beautiful, one of my favorite parts of the entire album). The "Face in the mirror" is reinforced by a harmony voice singing a third above.
After that another verse with additional acoustic guitars and some rather subtle string synths in addition to everything else.
Chorus again, this time after the "It's a crying shame" Bruce simply repeats "look at your face" three times, with the final face being extended while the piano plays an ascending octave lead.
This leads to the solo section with Bruce's solo. Played on an acoustic guitar, in the middle range, where it also stays. The vibe is a bit similar to Arc Of Space but in a very simple manner (it's surprisingly competent). After another transition we go back to the verse.
Which goes to the final chorus which adds Bruce in his high range singing some "oohs" behind every second line (plus this chorus features some altered lines), it ends with the three "look at your face"s again, and then repeats the chorus once more with the high pitched vocals reinforcing one of the last "face in the mirror"s.
The last part of the chorus is slowed down and the songs ends on a final chord.
Clean guitar plus piano start this song with an unusual, for Bruce, chord progression. He starts singing some beautiful mid range verses. After a while the section changes, drums and bass enter as well as some brass synths (horns specifically, like in the middle section of The Nomad) playing a few phrygian lines. Then the verse again, this time with drums as well.
We get what is probably the chorus, Bruce goes up the octave this time. The distorted guitars enter now. Beautiful vocal performance (maybe 2014 Bruce?). The song transitions, the drums play cymbal swells and some timpani rolls are heard, while the clean guitar has changed key accompanied by a string chord.
The next section has a clean guitar strumming, the bass playing as well, and the drums only hitting the ride softly while Bruce is divided between the left and right channel. We hear something along the lines of:
The first line is in the left channel, the second in the right, and it goes back and forth like that. The lines that aren't bolded are in a low octave without effects. The bolded ones are higher lines with a ton of reverb and some delay. The final couple of lines are probably going to become a fan favorite moment: The toms are hit in the same rhythm as "one drop" is sung and the final line is sung in the middle of the stereo field again which is immediately followed by a distorted guitar riff, a bit like a slowed down The Wicker Man (Maiden version). The drums enter again and we get a strong, traditional heavy metal section.
Bruce enters again and sounds amazing (sounds like 2014 Bruce). After that we get a section inspired by thrash metal with some rough vocals (but not screamed or growled vocals; not even like the end of Afterglow) of Bruce singing "This is my world, World of the dead, This is my life, World of the dead" and back to the heavy metal riff. Another round of younger Bruce singing. Once more the thrash section, this time twice as long and with different lyrics.
After that tempo shift and one of the rare twin guitar lead sections, backed by keyboards. We get the final vocals, the main melody in Bruce's mid-high range, the harmony vocal higher than that. We get some horn synths again, giving the thing quite the epic feeling. Once more an ending where bruce sings the final line, and then a church organ and choir synth plays the final chord.
The song starts with some weird synth samples and a mechanical drum sample. Clean guitars enter and play a minor chords and diminished chords. Bruce starts singing. After a couple of lines the chord progression changes and becomes a bit more "normal" and less unsettling. After that we get the chorus of Bruce singing:
The vocals are in his low range. The chorus features distorted guitars. The final "again" is a long held out note that goes back to the verse. This time the actual drums play, but with a ton of reverb. The distorted guitar plays a couple of slow and eerie lines.
We return to the chorus, which as far as the feeling goes is quite reminiscent of the main riff in Zombie by The Cranberries.
The next section changes the feel, we get the modified Moonlight Sonata samples (can't make out the iconic melody, but the pulsing rhythm is taken from there) and Bruce delivers a spoken word passage. Bass, simple drums and synths. A clean guitar starts playing and Bruce sings "make me whole again" which sounds great and then "bring back my queen" with the word "queen" going through 11 (!) pitches (B A and then wobbles between B and C repeatedly with the C being quite sharp).
Next section with some strong mid high range vocals by young Bruce. Which culminates in the chorus with the vocals singing the higher octave this time around. Not sure if the entire song is 2014 Bruce, but for the most part it sounds like that.
Post-chorus section, in a similar style to the chorus but with different melodies and lyrics. Transition to the next section, again spoken word lyrics and scaled down instrumental. Every now and then Bruce sings a line, but speaks lines in between. A slightly distorted guitar fades in and out every now and then. The entire section is centered around one chord (Bm) with some A's thrown in before the end of each repetition. Bruce repeats some vocals, a slow guitar solo starts with some Bruce lines sung over.
More than the final 3 minutes are this riff repeated over and over. We can also hear the manipulated Moonlight Sonata samples in the background as well. Bruce stops singing and the last almost 2 minutes are focused on the guitar solo which picks up the pace a bit. Around the 9 minute mark the instruments play softer and softer with the drums stopping and only playing a bit of the cymbals. A heavy "vinyl static" sound is faded in, the slightly distorted guitar plays some final leads, we can hear the Moonlight Sonata samples, and around the 9:30-mark the very distinctive chord progression of Beethoven's piece can be heard before the song ends on a final guitar note.
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