Countdown to Senjutsu. 17 albums in 17 days.

Day 7 finished! Seventh Son of a Seventh Son

This just be my personal favorite Maiden record. Its so hard to say, but its a 5/5 without a doubt. And what an ending to Maidens 80's. Crazy how they just puts out one awesome record after the next.

I really, really love the production here. It sounds so full and rich and beautiful. Everything about it. And the songs, fucking hell. The title track and Infinite Dreams I would say both are in my top 5 Maiden songs of all time. Infinite Dreams is beautiful. And the vocal on this record. Probably the best Bruce has sounded. Every song is so unique and special. so much character from the vocals. Moonchild, to Infinite Dreams, Madness, Evil. Its never the same. It never lets down. Such a journey. So much fucking goosebumps
And the solos on the album are brilliant. I would say that this album has it all. And again a totaly awesome album cover. And live, these songs just sound so great. Would also say that Only The Good Die Young is a really underrated track.

Now its soon time for the darker times... Goodbye 80's Maiden.
 
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Here we have it: my most preferred, most "perfect" album in the Maiden discography. Now, is this record actually perfect? No, of course not. Honestly, no Maiden record is 100% perfect. Most records by most bands are not 100% perfect. But this might be the closest (or second closest) they ever get. With the exception of Can I Play With Madness (still a glorious romp with enough meat on the bone to be considered a classic) and The Prophecy (with it's wonky ass vocal melodies), every song on SSOASS is a masterpiece. I truly love every second of this album, even when each individual track isn't pristine.

Adrian and Bruce (and Steve) really, really shine throughout the album. Whatever Bruce needed to get out, he did so here, and it's astonishing. His vocal performance is just wonderful, utilizing his full range and some rougher tones then we've heard him use before. There is such an intense vibe to this album that isn't present on most Maiden records (and won't be present again until BNW), and I truly believe that vibe is "Steve, Bruce, and Adrian are hungry". Just a wonderful record and a consistent competitor for my favorite Maiden album of all time.
 
SSOASS.

  • Moonchild is their all-time best album opener
  • Infinite Dreams is just beautiful
  • CIPWM is the ultimate Maiden pop song and a successful attempt at emulating the Def Leppard sound
  • TETMD is as good as The Trooper when it comes to all out rockers
  • SSOASS is as good an epic as ROTAM. The duel solos in the second half are peak Smith/Murray
  • The Prophecy might be the weakest song but I love the tempo changes for the solo and the melancholic acoustic outro
  • The Clairvoyant is probably their most interesting single with all of it's tempo changes. It's main riff is basically NOTB in reverse
  • OTGDY is equally as great an anthem as anything from their classics set list and should have been done live by now

This is the Chosen One. The apex mountain of Maiden's career. It was the best thing they did up to this point and it's the best thing they've done since. There's not a duff song on it. Production wise it's the slickest album they've ever done, very 80's. Some people think this has aged the album (particularly the synths) but I think it suits the songs perfectly. Bruce didn't write better lyrics until TCW.

What's amazing is that this is their lowest selling 80's album in the States, not even reaching platinum there. Meanwhile it was huge in the UK/Europe. Surely a sign of the sharp division in the metal scene happening at the time with the rise of thrash.

Fuck me though, this is a perfect album and the perfect way for them to end the 80's. It's all downhill from here.
 
What a lovely day. I've had birthdays that were less memorable than this. My hometown qualifying to Champions League, and I got to listen to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son!

Iron Maiden's music has often been described as a theater of the mind. This album might be the one that exemplifies this the most. It's also the album that perhaps can be counted as their one true concept album, as the theme of spirituality, along with good and evil is ever present in this album. Not to mention that it ends as it begins:

Seven deadly sins
Seven ways to win
Seven holy paths to hell
Seven downward slopes
Seven bloodied hopes
Seven are your burning fires
Seven your desires

Talk about them really topping off their golden decade with a lyrical and musical masterpiece like this. Moonchild sets the stage while combining haunt with speed.
Infinite Dreams gazes inwards with a comfortable pace before it ignites and explodes, and eventually smokes out in not knowing what happens - but hoping for something.
The Evil That Men Do contains one of the best overall melodies in their catalogue.
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is an ominous piece that evolves into an epic guitar battle which won't be seen again for quite some time.
While I think that The Prophecy is a little unbalanced, the intro and outro of this album can best be described with a chef's kiss.
The Clairvoyant is a song that took me years to appreciate. It was a song I never could get too comfortable with - and then I realized that I probably wasn't supposed to.
It's a bit funny Only the Good Die Young inadvertently becomes a peek for the coming album.

This album is a masterpiece. I won't understand anyone who wouldn't think so.

1. Somewhere in Time
2. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
3. Piece of Mind
4. The Number of the Beast
5. Powerslave
6. Iron Maiden
7. Killers
 
Day #8!

I personally consider No Prayer For The Dying as the worst album Bruce sang on, and the second worst Iron Maiden album overall. I think it lacks the standout tracks of other albums, and I felt the relatively stripped down approach to the album was a regression. This listen didn't change any of those views. With that said, I still enjoy the album. It's just a little light on substance.

Three of the tracks here are my immediate highlights - the title track (Diet Infinite Dreams), Bring Your Daughter, and Hooks In You. The latter really gets too much hate for a fun song with a catchy chorus. Speaking of too much hate, it may have a somewhat silly chorus but honestly The Assassin is pretty good too. Public Enema Number One and Fates Warning are both pretty good songs that could have been great if they were less stripped down. Tailgunner and Holy Smoke are not nearly as good as Aces High and Die With Your Boots On, but they're fine.

I'm less keen on Run Silent, Run Deep though, and Mother Russia is one of my least favourite Maiden tracks.
 
No Prayer for the Dying.

I love this record, but it wasn't always like that.
In 1990, although I liked the songs, this felt like a big comedown from their previous output. Gone was the pomp and grandeur of the more recent albums, replaced with a more street level attitude.

But around 15 years ago, half the distance since this was released, I switched, and the negatives became the positives;

- change wizard gowns and ill-fitting crowns for leather jackets and barnets from Barnet? Yes please!
- Smith's bold slabs of colour replaced by Gers' monochrome scratchy sketches? Better fit!
- Daughter's simplistic slutty slobbery for, err, Daughter's simplistic slutty slobbery? Oh Yeah!

This is the most unpretentious record in the entire catalogue, another reason to love it.
I never get bored either, something I can't say of Beast, Time and some others. Every time I listen it nudges up my list of favorites. It's top 6, but it could get real serious soon.

True Grit.
 
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Personnally, I find SSoaSS a little bit overrated and NPftD very underrated, but it's only my humble opinion.

I think that if SSoaSS has been so well received by the medias and the fans, that's because it was lighter in terms of synths parts, these ones were better used and mixed. On SiT, the feeling to be choked could sometimes appear and that's why most of the Maiden fans consider SSoaSS as a better album or a masterpiece considering SiT, comparing these two releases.

About NPftD, I think that it has always been mistreated by the fans because of the Adrian's departure from the band and because the raw production was really shocking after the polished sound of SSoaSS. This kind of imbalance can be upsetting as fans waited and hoped for the band to continue on the way of progressiveness it has walked on since 'Powerslave'. Unfortunately for the fans, the band has chosen to do something really different in 1989 to have a break on complexity and the really big stage layouts and huge tours. And for me, once again it's my humble opinion, NPftD is really better than FotD, both on the lyrics and the music, the songs being more agressive, more interesting and less boring.
 
My thoughts on NPFTD.

  • It sounds like it was recorded in a shed (it was)
  • I'm not sure about Bruce's snarly vocals
  • Tailgunner and Holy Smoke are good fun especially the skewering of the Catholic church in the latter's lyrics
  • NPFTD is, as observed by others, Infinite Dreams-Lite. It just goes nowhere
  • PENO (what an abbreviation) is actually a decent rocker
  • The middle three songs, FW, TA and RSRD are just plain rubbish
  • I'm missing Adrian Smith at this point
  • Hooks, like PENO is a decent rocker with a catchy chorus
  • BYDTTS, while ridiculous is also a decent rocker. Fair play for them getting a #1 single out of it
  • Mother Russia has so much wasted potential. A great, epic sounding intro riff makes way for dull plodding with a half decent instrumental section
This isn't my least favourite album but it's not far off. There were multiple points during this listen where I had to ask myself "have I heard this song before?" Not because I hadn't but because there are numerous moments which are just simply unmemorable. The middle section is just painfully dull and I find myself drifting off. The album also lacks direction. If they wanted to return to the early raw sound then why keep the synths?

Anyway, the next one gets slightly better then everything drops off a cliff lol.
 
Day 8 finished! No Prayerfor the Dying

Well, hello the 90's. And what a bummer this album is after Seventh Son. It sounds like shit, pretty much. The songs are not memorable at all. Bruce vocals are horrible. And its all kinda boring.
Okey, I dont hate this album, I still enyoy it. Its very easy to listen to. Like the two first albums. But it just feels so empty and grey. And kinda pointless.
I like Tailgunner. Run Silent Run Deep is underrated imo. Hooks and Daughter are kinda cool. But overall it just dosent do alot. And Mother Russia is awful.
I had a short period not so long ago when I sort of out of nowhere started to really like this album. But I snapped out of that real fast...
Its hard to rate in som ways. I like the album more when im listening to it then when im thinking about it.

Oh well. Ill give it a 2,5/5. Some days it might get a 3

My rankings so far:
Seventh Son 5/5
Piece 5/5
Powerslave 5/5
Beast 4,5/5
Time 4/5 (changed to 4 cuz it felt better,haha)
Iron Maiden 3,5/5
Killers 3/5 (changed to 3 instead of 3,5. Feels more right)
Prayer 2,5/5
 
No Prayer for the Dying
Ah, yes, the album that was recorded in a barn and features no less than four songs inspired by sticking something up your butt. Good job, guys. At the end of the day: the band is better than this. Everything feels half-assed here: the songwriting, the performances, the production, the incredibly bad lyrics, etc. It is not a very enjoyable record for me and a lot of that has to do with the incredibly high amount of major key vocal melodies - I find this kinda songwriting from Maiden to be grating and rather too silly.

All of that said, NPFTD is not without some merit. Run Silent, Run Deep is the best song here and manages to have some actual musical gravitas. Public Enema, Fates Warning, the title track, and Mother Russia all have some pretty awesome parts, too. The first two tracks are purely adequate, but mostly ridiculous and moderately annoying. The Assassin starts promising and then has a chorus that could fight with Invaders for one of the worst in the discography. Don't believe the hype: Hooks in You still sucks. Bring Your Daughter is fun enough, but also supremely boneheaded. This is definitely the lowest point since Killers and will most likely always remain in my bottom 3-4 Maiden albums.
 
Rewinding to Somewhere in Time for a moment: I'm surprised at the number of folks that think Bruce doesn't sound phenomenal. To me, SiT is up there with his absolute best album performances ever. I've also noticed that the genesis of his "modern" tone where his high notes are rounder and fuller begins on this album. I'm not sure if that's a result of him blowing his voice out in '85 or what, but his tone on SiT is much thicker and more muscular than on Powerslave, where his highs were sharper and much thinner. But I think that's why I enjoy his tone so much. I love Bruce's higher notes because they sound almost like he can't pull them off, but he does, and they have a lot of body to them. That rounded body on the higher notes started on this album and have continued and evolved to this day.
 
chaosapiant said:
Rewinding to Somewhere in Time for a moment: I'm surprised at the number of folks that think Bruce doesn't sound phenomenal. To me, SiT is up there with his absolute best album performances ever. I've also noticed that the genesis of his "modern" tone where his high notes are rounder and fuller begins on this album. I'm not sure if that's a result of him blowing his voice out in '85 or what, but his tone on SiT is much thicker and more muscular than on Powerslave, where his highs were sharper and much thinner. But I think that's why I enjoy his tone so much. I love Bruce's higher notes because they sound almost like he can't pull them off, but he does, and they have a lot of body to them. That rounded body on the higher notes started on this album and have continued and evolved to this day.
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I do agree with the theory of this, but I think it was still new to him on SIT. Honestly, it sounds like something he started doing out of necessity (after probably damaging his voice in some way) and then later learned how to perfect it. He sounds way better on SSOASS and by the time Chemical Wedding rolls around he has turned that "rounded body" into a technique.
 
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