Death Of The Celts

How good is Death of the Celts on a scale of 1-10?


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Jon

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Thread for all discussion of the track 'Death Of The Celts' from Iron Maiden's 17th studio album 'Senjutsu'.
 
Can't get into this one (yet). The only dud on this album for me and certainly the weakest on the album, can't really see why people are comparing this with the magnificent The Clansman other than the subject manner, starts like every other Harris epic and continues that way until the end but not as good as most of them, no real stand out melodies or solos, boring rhythm, average lyrics. I'm going to keep trying with this one and hope it grows on me but a very disappointing track on an incredible release, right now i honestly believe it would have been better to cut it from the album
 
My least favorite track on the album. Unfortunately, none of the riffs or melodies have clicked for me so far. I much prefer The Clansman to this one. Hopefully, it will grow on me.
 
Death of the Celts is my favorite track of the album. The Celtic atmosphere is very well achieved and has amazing bass lines. The best bass lines since Sign of the Cross. Also it feels like real progresive song and not just a forced long track. For me is much superior to The Clansman.
9.5/10
 
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Some melodies dont work for me. Vocals are amazing. Great solos. I like to Play this song over and over thanks to way Bruce sing his parts. For me its strong 8/10
 
After more than a minute of cool ambiance (although once again it could be briefer) we get a bass plus finger picking guitar that vaguely reminds a passage from Virtual XI's The Clansman (See? There's a difference between near recycling and making new stuff that is inspired in past songs... this part's a great example of the latter). And it is easily understandable due to the lyrical aspect. Bruce starts singing upon the last of this patterns till it opens up to fat chords while the vocals keep on hitting the folk like lullaby and man this sounds great. And what to say about the Chorus? Can things get more pompous and folk like epic than this? Don't know about you but I think the band absolutely nails it here as a whole. After a truly deep guitar solo a sudden break sends this song unto 100% vintage Maiden bouncing up front bass plus guitar harmonies territory and by now I'm really enjoying this (although it could be repeated less times). Steve is going bananas. Some more soloing action and the song returns to the chorus, just in time to end in the verse like sang lullaby that gives melody to the verses. I would give it another go on the verses/ chorus after the first chorus since that section is truly amazing and IMO the beef of the whole track (and cut a couple of runs on the equally great yet a bit too much repeated harmonies in the instrumental part as well as the initial part). But as it is I think it's still a great tune with lots of juice proving once again that when Maiden gets folk inspired you can only expect great things 8.25/10.
 
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The Clansman 2! Truly feels like a progression and not a ripoff.
Fantastic intro, so atmospheric and wonderfully mixed. The acoustic bass never sounded better.
Then the verse riff which is probably the most "Clansman" thing in this song, but the vocal melody makes it distinct IMO.
Fantastic melody over the reprise of the intro riff, then everyone kicks powerfully, and again the use of the intro riff, this time distorted. Sounds fantastic, Steve really nailed it here. I like to complain about him repeating riffs and ripping himself off, but this is something that is both very Steve and very fresh. Nicko knocks it out of the park with variations on the drums.

The chorus is very fitting. It does sound like something Blaze would sing amazingly.
Good Adrian solo, I like the modulation in the middle.
The abrupt transition is great, and then a cool riff that has a slight folk feel to it, into an amazing bass+guitar unison on a full folk metal melody. Love it. The entire cycle of these few parts is great and I'm glad it repeats here.

Cool Janick solo, sound very 90's. Good Dave solo. Another Adrian solo? Yes please.
Then after the solos the song sounds like they lowered the volume. Kinda pulls me out of the experience. Weird.

From here to the end it's all good. The outro feels slightly different, I wonder why. Overall, I really like this one.
 
I think subject matter this feels about 1600 years before William Wallace, as I said above, the lyrics remind me of the sentiment of the Dying Gaul, it definitely feels like it's a fight against the Romans.
 
Why do you compare it with the clansman?
It's a pretty ok song idk why I see so many hating it
The melody around 4:40 reminds me of Empire Of The Clouds around 11:30
Death of celts 08:00 sounds like Clansman 04:10
 
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I compare it musically. I don't know anything about the history of the celts (or William Wallace).
 
Maiden (and in particular Steve) really like ''Celtic'' melodies (as we can hear in some songs) and this song is the culmination. The melodies in it and Bruce's singing are delightful.
 
Unfortunately this is among the worst 5 songs after reunion for me. I had the exact same feelings about The Man of Sorrows from BoS. A must-skip for me right now, maybe that will change over the years but... I don't think so.

The song wants to be Clansman 2.0 so bad, but it's just... boring. I was really worried about Harris songs overall, but during the first listen, I enjoyed Lost in a Lost World and my worries were gone. Then, Death of Celts came on and I was scared again heading to the last two songs but thankfully, they are masterpieces.

So 3/4 for Harris with 2 absolutely beautiful songs - I'm a happy man. Fingers crossed DOTC is left of the setlist.
 
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