Bruce's vocals

There were times in TFF that I felt he was getting a bit thin and reedy. Wasn't very popular when I voiced the opinion. He has been a bit more experimental with his voice and has a lot more effects than he used to. For a while I thought he was diversifying his tone to make up for a lack of punch. But he definitely sounds a lot stronger in this new album. It's more traditional Bruce without any sign of his more nasal snarly repertoire that appeared in the previous two albums.
 
MaidenCanada said:
I think Bruce's voice sounds strained in some places too. Yet it also sounded strained in places on The Final Frontier, but he seemed to nail those same songs effortlessly live.

I cannot help but wonder if the guys are just mixing the vocals weird in parts because their hearing range isn't quite as good as it used to be?
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I think that there is difference between tour and studio. On tour he has time for preparation, more adrenaline while singing for people and so on and that's why he sound better live in many cases.
 
Bruce sounds far better on The Book of Souls than he did on The Final Frontier, and even much of AMOLAD and DOD. He might be stretching and pulling the hell out of his vocal chords, but there's a resonance in those highs that wasn't evident on the previous albums (especially TFF).
 
The sound is often different between studio and live. Apart from the obvious equipment and acoustics. The musicians also have to pace themselves for a long tour which in Bruces case means he has to change the way he sings somewhat. In the studio he can afford to really push to the limit and use techniques that might strain more with repetitive use on stage day in day out with varying temps, humidity etc. Early iron maiden live shows I don't think he varied his singing technique much between stage and studio and gave it the maximum treatment all the time. I think it was the slavery tour that they started working at tweaking the music to suite the physical strain of long tours.

Everyone learns tricks to rest and pace themselves when playing live for hours on end. Some of the videos on youtube where the band are interviewed have snippets mentioning small things they do to help them maintain their form without changing the music too drastically between studio and live gigs.
 
Nothing wrong with his voice at all - but I don't like the performances of the album. With the exception of "Eternity" and "Tears of a Clown" (less demanding), they sound under-rehearsed.
 
Personally, I think this is Bruce's best vocal performance in the whole of the reunion era, possibly excepting Brave New World.
 
I think this is Bruce's 2nd weakest performance of the reunion era (only better than DOD), BUT it's still a great performance and I have great respect for him refusing to massively overdub his voice to make it sound better but harder to replicate live, unlike someone like Halford.
 
Night Prowler said:
I think this is Bruce's 2nd weakest performance of the reunion era (only better than DOD), BUT it's still a great performance and I have great respect for him refusing to massively overdub his voice to make it sound better but harder to replicate live, unlike someone like Halford.
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I get your point, however, to be fair, Halford totally ruled live when I saw him here in the Czech Republic in June. I didn't expect much, but he was the star of the evening (I don't seriously count Scott Travis, since he's a decade younger than the rest). I know, however, he's very inconsistent, so - like I said - a pleasant surprise.

Bruce is usually at least listenable, even at his worst. In fact, I think his worst was at LAD - that's the only Maiden performance that's required some getting used to. That and maybe TFF, and I like the latter anyway.

However there are people who dislike Bruce overall - since his voice is very distinctive and so on... In fact, in the last year or so I have spoken to at least 4 people who like Blaze and dislike Bruce, since Bruce sounds somewhat obnoxious to them and Blaze doesn't. Seriously, I'm not making this up.
 
I think he sings great on most of the songs, but there are parts in almost every song that I find annoying and where I think he strains a lot, more than on previous album. I absolutely love it when he sings in a lower register though, it shows how much power he has in his voice.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
I get your point, however, to be fair, Halford totally ruled live when I saw him here in the Czech Republic in June. I didn't expect much, but he was the star of the evening (I don't seriously count Scott Travis, since he's a decade younger than the rest). I know, however, he's very inconsistent, so - like I said - a pleasant surprise.
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Yeah, he ruled when I saw him live too, but I really meant that he cheats in the studio by overdubbing his voice all the time. Usually few layers of his mid ranged voice and few layers of screaming.

JudasMyGuide said:
In fact, I think his worst was at LAD
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You didn't hear BBC Archives then :P
 
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