I'm listening to it this second as it happens.. Wildest dream was about 30 seconds in when I spotted this topic (I'm totally stalking you btw).
I believe I ranked it 3rd on my album list. I can't quite put a number to it because feelings and moods change faster than the weather, and I don't have the songs ranked either so I can't go via that route... for me to rank things out of 10 I need to have a "what is 10" "what is 0" baseline otherwise it takes me an age to decide... maybe if I think reallllllly hard I'll find a number soon. I do have a standalone track order though (it has changed today twice already though..):
Paschendale
Dance of Death
Face in the Sand
Journeyman
Montsegur
Age of Innocence
New Frontier
No More Lies
Rainmaker
Wildest Dreams
Gates of Tomorrow
Anyway, my opinions. In short: Best bit = P-A-S-C-H-E-N-D-A-L-E no contest, worst = artwork.
This album was the first Maiden album I ever heard in its entirety, I had just started listening to music around the time it came out and a friend lent me Eddie the Great, and then Dance of Death. So there will be a slight bias no matter how I try and ignore it, but everyone will be biased in a review of any album, because that's what it is... opinions.
The first thing to get me on the album was the title track, I played it over and over and over until I knew all the words, the next real grabber for me was Montsegur.. I was really into the heavier material back then compared to now where I like things that flow and have some emotion to them. When I heard Paschendale... it eclipsed everything else completely. My first year of university with a friend who was equally into Maiden, Paschendale would be blasted out at max volume every day much to our fellow block-mates frustration.
Track by Track.. hmm.
Wildest Dreams can be reasonably fun to play on guitar but as a track it has never struck me as brilliant, it's um just.. not anything amazing. As a short rocker, I prefer...
Rainmaker, although I do think that the heavy chord into of WD makes for a better album opener Rainmaker just has a far more catchy lead. The chord sequences change around a lot more and it's got quite a fun chorus imo, but that main leadwork is by far the best bit of the track.
No More Lies could do with being a touch shorter, but for a long time it was at the top end of the album for me. The main thing that lets it down is that Bruce's singing of the chorus, it's the same melody for each line there's no variation. It's got the length of an epic, but not the feel of one. It is odd to see what I consider to be an aggressive track with such length.
Montsegur, aaah yes, it blew me away the first time I heard it and it's still an awesome track. It's place in my track listing is not because it's bad, far from it. The intro really punches you hard and I really, REALLY love the tone of the guitars here. Verse is so incredibly simple... the real gem of the track though is the melody that runs under the chorus. Now I just need to stall my thought's long enough to let the track (playing as I type) get to that awesome ending before I move onto writing the rest
Dance of Death. I was pretty much already hooked on Maiden after hearing Wickerman and (yes, I know) RTTH on Eddie the Great.. but this song pretty much sealed the deal back then. It changes so much that no matter what mood im in, something softer or something heavy.. it works. What it's also good for is getting me into the mood for other songs, if I'm only in a mood for soft, emotional acoustic ballad's (Arc of Space ftw lately) then Dance of Death really works wonders for bringing me into the frame of mind for sharp punchy straight up metal due to the way the song flows. One of my favourite Janick solo's too.
Gates of Tomorrow, I do like it.. Dance of Death is one of those few albums that I can always think back and remember melodies and music, so many other albums I need to dig out to remember exactly how a track goes. That being said, this is imho the worst of the album... intro reminds me a little of Lord of the Flies in a way. Gah.. Just listening to this now (I skipped DoD because I know it well enough to write about it without needing a refresher on any part of it).... I want to put it higher in the list but trying to push it past the other tracks is hard cos I like them just as much! I think the only thing I don't like about it is Bruce's voice sounds a little strained on the chorus?
New Frontier. Okay so I've skipped the rest of GoT (Even if I can remember tracks, it's easier to write about them while they are playing).... I know Nicko didn't contribute heavily but I think this gets bashed a bit because it has his name on it and they expect it to be bad as a result - or people look back and think "Which was NF? Oh Nicko's track.. yeah that must've been off". It's a decent little rocker track, and given he helped write parts of it... Nicko's drumming is awesome on it, there's some nice little fills in there I'd forgotten about, and that little guitar lick under the chorus. Best bit of the track though is the instrumental bit around 2:50 leading into the solo, kicks ass. Come to think of it, if it had a bit less of a sudden start... this would've been my choice to open the album.
Paschendale... do I really need to say anything about this other than epic? Okay fine. I love the cannon's going off throughout the track that I honestly never noticed till a few weeks ago because I was usually too busy yelling along to it
Love the S.O.S cymbals just adding that extra touch of war. There is nothing about this track that doesn't scream perfection for me... I don't have much of a track ranking atm, but this is #2 or possibly #1. It's possibly the best piece they've written from all angels, musically, lyrically, emotionally, the imagery etc is fantastic... the only reason it potentially sits at #2 is cos whilst I think it's a less outstanding piece of music... I just really love Hallowed! Orchestral version of Paschendale is fcking awesome too... can't quite decide which I prefer - it adds more atmosphere but it's so good already I'm not sure if it's going "over the top" (see what I did there?).
Just noticed in Pasch actually... during the "In no mans land god only knows" etc part, there's a very deep vocal under it just adding that extra little level of depth to it, I caught it for a moment and had to back track and really concentrate hard to pick it up... it may just be accidental from the recording/mixing process, or it could be Adrian doing a low backing vocal.. but its bits like that that make me cry that I will never be able to write music half this good.
Face in the Sand... I love this track. I think I'm probably alone in this, but I really really do. The intro is a bit slow and meh, but the verse's and chorus just constantly build and build and build. The only track Nicko has ever used a double base pedal on.. maybe that's why I think it's so good. It just feels
powerful to me. The lead into the solo is great.. there have been a few tracks lately where I just feel the solo is out of place, but this one meshes fantastically into the lead before it, I only wish the solo were longer.
Age of Innocence. I wouldn't expect to but I really like the intro here, how it builds into the verse is awesome. The music is a really rocky piece and whilst I may be repeating myself here, if the vocals were a bit faster it could again be a good contender for the album opener, certainly better than Wildest Dreams at least. Again though, I don't know what it is with this album but the build up to the solo is fantastic! That low hum into a really distorted crunchy start. Favourite bit is when it kicks into "You can't protect yourself...", it sounds so heavy and Bruce's voice so gritty... sounds very stripped back imho - what I wish NPFTD/FOTD sounded like (Given they were meant to be the 'back to basics' type thing).
Journeyman. I know it's not typical Maiden, but as I've said above.. I often like the softer side. One thing I love about listening to metal bands (and often how I catch new fans) is that there is great diversity, they apply their writing talents not just to heavy stuff but they can write emotional tracks too. This isn't emotional in some senses, but it's a lovely soft side of Bruce's voice... I actually managed to get my Mum to (okay, she doesn't own CD's, but I made some Rock/Metal mix CD's and she actually puts them on out of choice) listen to the bands I like by playing things like Journeyman and Angel by JP. Causing a "Who's this?" reaction and then "Really???" ... followed by playing things like DoD, TTLBLAH etc and she started to appreciate that it's not all heavy, and the songs are well structured. Sorry, sidetracked... I like balllady type things a lot of the time, and so I think it's great that Maiden went for diversity and a left field song, and I think it worked great.
Now.. Thats my opinion of the tracks, but track opinion and album opinion's can be different. I think the tracks are all great.. but I'm not sure I'd say the album is as good as the sum of its parts, but given its #3 on my list already then if it was it'd be a bloody masterpiece.
I think a few songs are out of place when put next to others... Journeyman is an awesome track on its own but with the rest of the album it comes as a bit of a shock. Wildest Dreams best compliment to the album is that it really makes Rainmaker pop out, and helps give that "this just keeps getting better" feel to the overall thing. Again Montsegur is an awesome track but it's a bit out of place being a heavy one in that first section. I sometimes wonder if some of these tracks would be better moved to other albums, pulling up the overall score of some of the weaker albums without overly denting the score of this one.
Okay sod it, I won't give a precise rating as it depends how I judge it.. but the albums... 9.5 for me. Originally I was going to say "Lower cos WD drags it down a bit" then it kicked back into WD and I had to change this, it's one of those tracks that is actually pretty damn tasty, but gets overshadowed and forgotten by the rest of the brilliance thats there.
My track order at the top of this post has changed 5 times since I started writing this. While I've been writing it I've had the album playing and every time a new track came up I thought "!!!!"... it's just got back round to the start (I've skipped through parts of tracks that I know very well to try and help me write about other bits) - and due to the guitar tone they've had in the reunion albums when Wildest Dreams hit that verse I just had a temptation to go up to the top and change the list again! But if I keep doing that I'll be cycling through it forever
When I started writing.. No More Lies was 4th on the list, but so many other bits of other tracks have popped out I just had to bump them up.
Honestly, PFD/DoD are ahead of the rest by a clear margin for me because they are near/ARE perfection. There's not a major gap before the other tracks, but the gap between the other tracks is minimal. After writing this out and hearing the start of the album again I may just have to solidfy that 9.5 ... and possibly bump this to #2 on my album rankings
Which is pretty nuts considering the opening of the album I had very little to say and consider it to be the weakest part...
EDIT: Oh I totally forgot!! ... The album also gave birth to the greatest maiden song ever. Nicko's version of Age of Innocence!!!!!! That's easily a 12 on its own.
I think my average words per post just doubled.