Lamia020281
Educated Fool
You may well be right. But I still like them.
You should´ve post this in the Maiden Stories thread.Face in the Sand: a very captivating intro. The problem of this song are the last couple of minutes in which certain parts are repeated too often. The total result is too monotonous, really.
No More Lies......
I find this one not the worst, but certainly the most predictable and unimaginative song Maiden ever did.
The Angel and the Gambler has a more surprising build-up.
- - - - - - -
Dramatis Personae
J: Janick
D: Dave
B: Bruce
A: Adrian
N: Nicko
S: Steve
Notting Hill, London... recordings of Dance of Death, Maiden’s thirteenth studio album…
A, D, J, N and B are having a beer in the bar.
J: Where is Steve?
D: He has it again.
B: What?
D: It is that time again.
A: Huh? What do you mean, Dave?
N: What hoooo! Hahaha!
B (slightly annoyed): Come on Nicko, lay it off for a minute will ya?
A: Yeah, Nicko, stop it, I don’t like this, I want to know what’s going on.
D: Steve is busy in the studio. It will take hours before we see him.
J: Huh… we have done 10 songs.
D: Yes, but he told me has some kind of tradition. On every album he wants to do at least one song by himself.
A sighs, with a worried look on his face.
B orders another beer, and looks kind of agitated.
N: Don’t worry guys, I thought we had agreed that we wouldn’t be bothered by this kind of stuff.
J: Yeah. Maybe it’ll be good!
A: Yeah. Maybe.
The guys decide to drink a few more beers and go to bed.
Next morning, they gather at the breakfast table.
A: Still no Steve.
B: I’ve had it, let’s go to him.
D: Guys ….
N: Let them, Dave, we’ll go with them. Come on, Jan.
J: I am curious too.
With firm footsteps they go to the recording room, finding S with a ghastly face.
He curses the others with the eye.
S: Four times fifty different chord schemes, and I still have no clue what to do.
With heavy fingers, lifeless fingers, my ideas wished they’d die.
S shakes his head, turns his white and sweaty face to D.
S: Dave, I told you to keep them away from me. I don’t want to be interrupted when I am wearing my albatr… eh bass around my neck!
J: So what do you have?
S, while strumming his bass: I only have this freakin’ chord scheme.
A: Hey, that sounds familiar. It reminds me of … ouch!!
Nicko takes his elbow out of Adrian’s ribs.
D: Let me see, if you change this and that a bit, then you have a few variations.
He plays it on his own guitar. S’s face changes dramatically.
S: Wow! That’s what I needed.
B: It still sounds quite the same to me.
S whistles the melodies D just came up with.
S: I need an intro too.
D: No problem, we’ll use your scheme and my variations again. We can use exactly the same chord progression, it will be the same as the couplets. We’ll just freak around with some calm guitars, like we always do. Right Adrian?
A (happy with Paschendale and not in the mood for discussion): Alright.
N: Janick?
J: I guess I will play the last solo again. But OK, you two guys work something out.
S: Alright Dave, come on. The rest: OUT!
N: Can I stay Steve?
S: OK.
Bruce, Janick and Adrian leave, slightly worried about the result.
After an hour they hear loud noise coming from the recording room. They head back to discover that S is engaged in a fistfight with D. N tries to keep them away from each other, catching some blows –with lots of tempo and rhythm changes- in the process.
B: What the fuck is going on here?
D after taking a deep breath: Look… I have helped you with this song Steve, so it’d be fair if I would get a co-credit. If I hadn’t helped you, you still would have this single bloody chord scheme!
S: No. I want to have one song by myself. That’s my tradition.
D: That’s not fair! People will say it’s not true when I tell them I contributed.
The face of S reddens.
S: We won’t tell anyone. This song is mine! When people ask, you guys are bound to tell this story, this tale, wherever you go. To teach this word by my own example. That we must love all things that I made.
J looks puzzled.
B: Do you have lyrics of your own, Steve?
S after some hesitation: Well, that was one other thing I’d like to….
D interrupts: I don’t care. I don’t want this crap anymore. I can’t stand it anymore!
S: What can’t you stand anymore?
D: No more!
S: No more what?
D: No more lies!
I´ll take that duo over DOD and Paschendale any day of the week.I like No More Lies and Face in the Sand.
Not just listened to it, it's my album of his I nominated it (and also the first Ziltoid and Ocean Machine) for the game.Ah forgot to mention this one... have you listened to Deconstruction? I can easily bare the onslaught of any SYL album but half of the songs on that fucker are so dense, so chaotic that I rarely pick that album. Although being the spawn of an already stable person, Deconstruction is an ironical, comical approach but way too dense, chaotic and saturating at times even to my ears. By far the hardest listening Dev album IMO.
...which is a rehash of the melodic lines from “Dance Of Death”, a mere 4 tracks earlier.Face in the Sand: a very captivating intro.
Really? Never noticed that. then again, the DOD album is collecting dust here...Maybe it´s time to give this a spin....which is a rehash of the melodic lines from “Dance Of Death”, a mere 4 tracks earlier.
Which I've always liked since it feels - to me - like a recap of where we've been as we head to the closing three songs which brings things to a close....which is a rehash of the melodic lines from “Dance Of Death”, a mere 4 tracks earlier.
And maybe it was intentional. If there were other repeated musical themes on the album then I’d probably agree with that interpretation, but I’m not aware of any others.Which I've always liked since it feels - to me - like a recap of where we've been as we head to the closing three songs which brings things to a close.
Ocean Machine is, obviously, an immensely great record and is borderline regarding my top 5 Devin records (I'd still prefer Infinity, Terria, Epicloud, Physicist - underrated as hell - and then Ocean Machine is tied with Empath and Addicted in my list). Ziltoid is perhaps one of the albums I like the least from his catalogueNot just listened to it, it's my album of his I nominated it (and also the first Ziltoid and Ocean Machine) for the game.
Yup... it's another of his "masks" but at least he's perfectly aware he's using it. The reason why you find Deconstruction cohesive is simple: it's a conceptual album (and in all honesty the majority of them have a lot in common). If you don't know the story behind it just google it: you'll piss your pants laughing. Infinity is precisely the opposite: it's all over the place trying to suck every single aspect of the guy's life into a single album.Deconstruction is nothing like it, the craziness is technical and the WTF factor comes from it and from the lyrics. But the songs, especially the long ones, are much more like stitches of different parts, all made for the same goal of being insane. On Infinity truly has it's own identity, each one is it's own mini genre while Deconstruction is strangely cohesive and for this reason is the easiest to swallow for me.
Mmmm Infinity is where he was REALLY crazy... batshit crazy to tell the truth! Developing a god complex, drowned in dope and estranging all his loved ones. The lyrical content is not that crazy when compared with more extreme recordings. And IMO neither is the sound. But the circumstances are by far the wackiest ones in this guy's career.Infinity is more on the weird part
Alien is Devin trying to pull himself beyond the extreme, to a certain kind of hateful, misanthropic animal he came to the conclusion he wasn't, discovering he was quite the opposite: a sensible guy that even gets affected by some stuff other people find trivial. And that kinda messed up with his "masculinity"... so that's why he went over the top to prove he was "tough" and "extreme". He talks about it on the last podcast and considers it to be one of the most enlightening, well crafted and important records of his career. I think it sort of made him take a self knowing trip by the opposite route: showing him everything he isn't.Alien is very extreme crazy, and ultra cathartic, each song has like 4 crescendos. And all this emotional buildup and release is very hard on the spirit.
Underappreciation isn't negativity. Lots of people said lots of nice things about Head On. The real good part is people who hadn't heard it before.Wow, had not expected so much negativity (i.e. underappreciation) about Head On.
Sounds vaguely familiar.Maiden next faces Ghost.
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There was, and I totes forgot.Wasn’t there supposed to be a tiebreaker for Bloodbound and Virgin Steele...?