Empire Of The Clouds

How good is Empire of the Clouds on a scale of 1-10?

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There's a poll over at the official BB for a favorite between Mariner and Empire. Despite the novelty, Mariner wins by a great margin (55 to 12 votes so far). I think that speaks volumes. I do not agree with the opinion that they went for the solemn approach so the song doesn't warrant an instrumental climax. Since there is a lyrical climax and Bruce himself describes the song as being divided in conceptual parts (intro - backround / flight / storm / crash / eulogy - outro) the music should have been diverse enough to amplify this. Lastly, people in this thread who believe there is a climax don't agree between them which one it is exactly, so that proves a point as well. Another gripe is that they should have went all out and used real organs instead of keyboards for the instrumentation, just like they used a real piano.

I'm being overly critical about this song not because I don't like it, I enjoy it very much, but I cannot help but seeing it as a major missed opportunity seeing that it is the longest ever Iron Maiden song, which is a statement in itself and was heralded by the press so much. It should have been much more than what it is. That's my personal opinion.
 
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I agree with gor. What I need to point out is that most of us -me included- criticize Maiden not cause we hate them but because we love the fucking band.
 
Well they are still new at this.
Maybe on the next album there will be an even longer song with a real orchestra and 4 different climaxes
 
Gor: because of the novelty can be an argument as well. People had a chance to experience Rime, on various releases but also in concert.
 
Empire is stunning, I would never have thought they will do something of this sort. I love the buildup, the continuous adding of various instruments and sounds, Bruces voice kicks ass.

(At the first listen I thought the song will end at the spooky hopeless piano tralala tralala that is at 14:25 .. )

To add my bit to the previous topic - I also am a Dream Theater fan and Scenes was my "hook" album.
 
For all you believers, I checked Wikipedia and it seems to me that the Titanic doesn't fit inside unless you want to cut 33.7 metres off the length of it, and another 10 metres off the height. Which seems like a bit of a pain in the bum. Maybe the line was going to be "The Titanic fits inside if you get a load of crushing machines and squish it all up into a little ball" but Steve didn't like the flow and took the second half of the lyric out.
 
Shadow said:
When has Steve ever cared about lyrical flow? :innocent:
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You've got a point. In that case he was probably just arguing with Bruce because, remember, they hate each other and Steve's a bloody-minded old fella who likes to remind everyone that he's the boss (t'boss.. T'Boss... TBOS! you see what I did there?)
 
Caveman Ninja said:
For all you believers, I checked Wikipedia and it seems to me that the Titanic doesn't fit inside unless you want to cut 33.7 metres off the length of it, and another 10 metres off the height. Which seems like a bit of a pain in the bum. Maybe the line was going to be "The Titanic fits inside if you get a load of crushing machines and squish it all up into a little ball" but Steve didn't like the flow and took the second half of the lyric out.
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That's what I call sales pitch.
 
I still love AMOLAD and BoS, my top #2 and #3. :)

But I love how they promote albums.
"Yes, this is best album since 7th son. I feel like the feeling in studio was even better than since number of the beast. So fresh and creative. Kevin is genius, he can catch our sound just as fans love it. We never was so strong as on this album, even Nicko feels younger that ever. Oh and don't let me start about cover beacuse it's instant classic. It's so heavy and fast album, our fans will love it. It's like child of Powerslave with Number of the Beast… with PIANO!"
 
ScPkeku.png

This pretty much sums up this song for me.
 
Haters notwithstanding I still think this is the best song Maiden have ever done.

As a question, is the "3000 horses silent as the ship began to die" a reference to the horsepower of the failed engines?
 
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