I prefer not to do a song-per-song review, but instead will try to give my first impressions.
A clarification first: BNW is one of my top 3 favourite IM albums, while DOD is one of the least 3 favourites.
New songs are very different from what you'd expect from the Iron Maiden we all know. These are perhaps most chord driven songs Iron Maiden has ever wrote. There seem to be a lack of concesus about if the album is heavy or not, and that must be because of mp3 quality. IMO, when the CD comes out and we listen it from quality speakers or headphones instead of winamp or mp3players this won't be the case. Heaviness is a very subjective criteria. if you listen to Testament (I do), Iron Maiden has never been and will never be as heavy as them. Nevertheless, I think this is the heaviest Iron Maiden album ever made. And I liked it.
As I said before, there are more chords and riffs than guitar melodies. They are scarce. This is the direction they are heading since mid 1990's and I think they found the right balance now. 3 guitars makes more sense now.
AMOLAD might not be a concept album, but musically, it has an integrity. and perhaps too much of it. The criticism I want to bring about Iron Maiden is that, when writing an album, they decide one guitar sound and that's it. every single song is played with same guitar sound, with equal heaviness. And the bassy and "let's make it heaviest possible" approach to production leaves no room for accents, variety. All songs sound so compressed. That makes the songs sound very alike. And this is the case since BNW. I don't blame maiden for that, maybe Martin Birch set the standards so high. But I also wished that Dave Adrian and Janick tried to add some variety to their guitar tones, according to the song they play, like in SiT or SSOASS.
I really liked song structures. Some songs tend to be longer than they need to be. Just like Dream Of Mirrors is a song played twice. but guitar passages, different beats and rhythms, are really dominating new Iron Maiden album, and that's a good change.
Finally, the album reminded me of Tool's latest album, 10.000 days try it too.
oh by the way, my only song-specific comment: someone said "Out Of The Shadows" sounded like a Bruce solo song, I found it like wasting love, Fear Of The Dark era song.
A clarification first: BNW is one of my top 3 favourite IM albums, while DOD is one of the least 3 favourites.
New songs are very different from what you'd expect from the Iron Maiden we all know. These are perhaps most chord driven songs Iron Maiden has ever wrote. There seem to be a lack of concesus about if the album is heavy or not, and that must be because of mp3 quality. IMO, when the CD comes out and we listen it from quality speakers or headphones instead of winamp or mp3players this won't be the case. Heaviness is a very subjective criteria. if you listen to Testament (I do), Iron Maiden has never been and will never be as heavy as them. Nevertheless, I think this is the heaviest Iron Maiden album ever made. And I liked it.
As I said before, there are more chords and riffs than guitar melodies. They are scarce. This is the direction they are heading since mid 1990's and I think they found the right balance now. 3 guitars makes more sense now.
AMOLAD might not be a concept album, but musically, it has an integrity. and perhaps too much of it. The criticism I want to bring about Iron Maiden is that, when writing an album, they decide one guitar sound and that's it. every single song is played with same guitar sound, with equal heaviness. And the bassy and "let's make it heaviest possible" approach to production leaves no room for accents, variety. All songs sound so compressed. That makes the songs sound very alike. And this is the case since BNW. I don't blame maiden for that, maybe Martin Birch set the standards so high. But I also wished that Dave Adrian and Janick tried to add some variety to their guitar tones, according to the song they play, like in SiT or SSOASS.
I really liked song structures. Some songs tend to be longer than they need to be. Just like Dream Of Mirrors is a song played twice. but guitar passages, different beats and rhythms, are really dominating new Iron Maiden album, and that's a good change.
Finally, the album reminded me of Tool's latest album, 10.000 days try it too.
oh by the way, my only song-specific comment: someone said "Out Of The Shadows" sounded like a Bruce solo song, I found it like wasting love, Fear Of The Dark era song.