Iron Maiden studio album 17 rumours and speculations

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srfc said:
I used to have only two exceptions to my theory, 23:58 which I think is much of a muchness between the live and studio versions as to which was better, and Wasted Years. However, I think recent versions of WY are better than the studio version.

EDIT:Actually, I take your point CSIT is definitely better on the album (maybe a new 3 guitar live version might beat it!), and Bruce often got lost during the pre-chorus/chorus maze of SIASL.
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And they dropped both runner and madness. Runner's only audio recording sucks but band commented on the drop, didn't they. The latter also did not work well live, Sea of Madness amazing riff was lost in that live sound. Well that's most of the songs they've tried - didn't work out pretty well. Sadly.

Hopes up that they have neat recordings of dry live channels so they could remaster up a better sound for a potentional official bootleg release ala Megadeth's 1990 Wembley show on Warchest. That one sounds 10/10.
 
Operations666 said:
I think the production on The Book of Souls: Live Chapter is great. Tony Newton should produce the next studio album.
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Really not keen on TBOSLC mix personally, guitars are buried and thin sounding, bass has no power, delay throws too loud.
What he did get quite good was the overall frequency balance.

I've mixed views on KS' production. BNW sounds fantastic (probably the best sounding album the band have) but since then it's been quite inconsistent.

A decent mastering engineer giving the mixes a bit of low and high end boost would do a world of good from AMOLAD onwards, but Steve is so set on things coming back pretty much the same as they left the studio.
 
I agree that Live Chapter isn't great. The hi hat in the verse of Eternity is louder than the guitars. Not quite sure it was like that when I saw it live. And then theres the insane level of the keys near the end of TRATB. You might be hard pushed to convince someone that theres actually 3 guitar players in this band.

Agree with what someone else said RE Shirley/Newton. I think it was for purely financial reasons that Shirely wasnt involved. It was a half assed release so they didn't was to spend the kinda coin Shirley would have cost. It does not speak to the bands current relationship with Shirley at all. Speculation, mind.

Similar to srfc, I generally prefer live Maiden to recorded, on a comparison basis (although I listen to more recorded stuff that live, generally). Although the LC version of Death or Glory does not come together at all, I'm pretty sure Ive heard better on youtube.
 
I'm not a fan of the Live Chapter mixes either. They sound sort of like polished soundboards or monitor mixes. Everything lacks clarity and punch, the bass drum for example only sounds good on the two 2017 songs. Adrian is mostly buried somewhere in the center, except for when he's playing a solo. The guitars are tinny, the bass is low, really it just feels like a work-in-progress mix with how loud the drums and vocals are relative to everything else.

It's a shame because the performances aren't half bad (besides Bruce straining pretty badly on a lot of the songs), but the mix just kind of throws the whole thing out of whack and makes the band sound worse than they actually are. I'm not the biggest fan of Shirley's live mixes since RiR (which I think is easily the band at its best on any release, period), but even still they sounded far less out of it on En Vivo for example.
 
Does it have any realistic chances that Maiden will go ''back to their roots'' on their next album? Can we expect a album like NPFTD style, with a 4 minutes songs and with just one epic...
 
Kalata said:
Does it have any realistic chances that Maiden will go ''back to their roots'' on their next album? Can we expect a album like NPFTD style, with a 4 minutes songs and with just one epic...
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I hope not. I like how in the reunion era the songs keep getting bigger, longer, more complex, more indulgent, more progressive.

We always have the 80s material. It's not going anywhere, and we can revisit it anytime we like. There's plenty of it already, and it's perfect as it is. No need to try to recreate it.

I hope Maiden continues to experiment and explore in their final years.
 
Operations666 said:
I hope not. I like how in the reunion era the songs keep getting bigger, longer, more complex, more indulgent, more progressive.

We always have the 80s material. It's not going anywhere, and we can revisit it anytime we like. There's plenty of it already, and it's perfect as it is. No need to try to recreate it.

I hope Maiden continues to experiment and explore in their final years.
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I also like the long progressive songs, but I think it's time for them to write a album with more short straightforward songs.

I do not want again 13+ minutes songs or 18 (or more than 18!), but then again, a song like The Book of Souls is amazing. Maybe songs no more than 7-8 minutes is a good solution.
 
Mind you, there can be such things as "long rockers" or long AND straightfoward songs: the studio version of "El Dorado" is 6'49 long.
 
Kalata said:
Btw, why you think that ?
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Because Maiden often talk about looking forward and not being a nostalgia/cabaret band (cabaret mega-tours aside). Doing an album in the vein of 'The Number of the Beast' or 'Piece of Mind' would be seen as a backwards step by Maiden and its more of a Slayer/Motorhead sort of thing to do. It would also be a huge U-turn from the route they started on with 'A Matter of Life and Death' and expanded upon in 'The Final Frontier' and 'The Book of Souls'. If Steve decided that everything has to be less than five minutes all of a sudden it would probably screw up the way they're used to writing now.

I too would prefer shorter songs. The last two albums have gone overboard with the song lengths. 'The Red and the Black' would be a fine song if curtailed to six minutes and 'Empire of the Clouds' would be more captivating if it was ten minutes. The bloated length of songs has devalued the so-called epics for me. Songs that in the 80s would have been "rockers" are now eight minutes long and have become epics, and the epics that would have been seven minutes long are now ten minutes or longer. 'The Book of Souls' did give a tantalizing glimpse of shorter, faster, more upbeat songs in 'Speed of Light, 'When the River Runs Deep' and 'Death or Glory', but they compensated for with overblown monster-epics. I reckon Steve uses British Lion for his shorter Rock-oriented tendencies and with Maiden he wants to push the limits of what he can do with songwriting and composing.
 
I know a lot of people keep comparing Maiden with Priest, and that can often unnerve some of the fans who love what Maiden are doing, but I’m starting to think that while Maiden could continue in the path they’ve been tracing for the last few years, it might be beneficial to them to do something a little different. Maybe not Andy Sneap production, but maybe bringing in Roy Z to the fold and having him work with Shirley and create a unique sound for the next record. I dunno, I don’t care what they do so long as it’s good, but this may help bring back some of the fans who fell off the band wagon with their change-ups starting in the ‘90s. At any rate, it’ll be exciting to see what happens next.
 
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