Iron Maiden studio album 17 rumours and speculations

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LooseCannon said:
I like long Maiden songs. I like the feeling of epicness that they bring. But I will admit there are a few songs that I think are long just for the sake of being long, and maybe they should trim those down. For example, Caught Somewhere in Time could have left off the unnecessary intro part - absolutely unneeded. And do they really need the slow interim during Rime of the Ancient Mariner? It just stops the song dead and really, we could go right into the next part without anyone noticing or caring. Finally, the instrumental outro of Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, entirely pointless, it just meanders. Really if they had cut it down to 5 minutes things would have been fine. Pretty good with the stuff in the reunion though, very few songs there that I think length affects.
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I agree with everything apart from the final sentence. 'The Red and the Black', 'Empire of the Clouds' and much of 'The Final Frontier' album would/could be better if they'd been curtailed a bit.
 
I can't think of any Iron Maiden songs off-hand I'd cut down. But that's just because I don't remember most of Fear of the Dark and I'd much rather The Angel and the Gambler just not exist at all to begin with.

e: You totally could cut down Shadows of the Valley a fair amount without losing much though. But I don't know if I would want to, it'd mean losing some really cool solos, and I feel the band is at its best when it does what comes naturally anyway, whether that's long songs, medium length songs or short ones. Don't matter to me as long as they're good, really.
 
While I will greatly accept any new Maiden Music. I'd love for another Bruce picked set like TBOS tour set. Mainly so I could potentially hear Rime or Powerslave. Was too young when they played the former and as for the latter I wasn't into Maiden and I passed on the tour. In retrospective that was an incredibly shitty choice.

That being said I don't expect another double album. I think it will be a shorter one around 60-70 minutes with a decent mix of track lengths. Maybe another "concept" album
 
The Dissident said:
so I could potentially hear Rime or Powerslave. Was too young when they played the former and as for the latter I wasn't into Maiden and I passed on the tour. In retrospective that was an incredibly shitty choice.
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But you weren't into them when you were too young either so it's a moot point.
 
The slow middle part of Rime is what makes it so powerful and dramatic when down comes the raaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn.... It's a perfectly constructed song. And the outro instrumental portion of Seventh Son is basically the point of the song. Those are arguably the 2 most perfect Maiden songs there are. I wouldn't change a note on either of them.

Personally I am happy that late-era Maiden is producing longer and more complex songs. Let them get indulgent at this point in their career. No point in trying to reproduce the 80s era sound and style. That music will always be there for us. I want to see Maiden now push the envelope as far out as possible.
 
LooseCannon said:
And do they really need the slow interim during Rime of the Ancient Mariner? It just stops the song dead and really, we could go right into the next part without anyone noticing or caring. Finally, the instrumental outro of Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, entirely pointless, it just meanders. Really if they had cut it down to 5 minutes things would have been fine.
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The outro of Seventh Son?!!!! That's one of the best moments in Maiden's career!! And Rime's slow middle part is simply magical.
 
Black Wizard said:
In the eighties there used to be one song above seven minutes and it was the centrepiece of the album. Now an Iron Maiden song needs to be 18 minutes long to stand out.
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Indeed. On Book of Souls, there are three songs longer than 10 minutes. However, I think only one of them would've been better if it were shorter - TRATB. It is the same length as Rime of the Ancient Mariner, it probably has more different musical motifs in it than Rime, and it doesn't have a calm breakdown in the middle. Still it feels longer than Rime. To me, it feels almost the same length as Empire of the Clouds, despite actually being significantly shorter.

Post-Blaze Maiden has had this tendency and they seem to be happy with it. But the most important part is that they're still making plenty of good songs!
 
The Red and the Black said:
The slow middle part of Rime is what makes it so powerful and dramatic when down comes the raaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn.... It's a perfectly constructed song. And the outro instrumental portion of Seventh Son is basically the point of the song. Those are arguably the 2 most perfect Maiden songs there are. I wouldn't change a note on either of them.
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I agree. Surely it would've been possible to make the calm parts shorter in both songs, but when I listen to them they don't feel long at all.
 
Black Wizard said:
There's a difference between making 12 straightforward Rock songs and trimming down on the lengths of the songs. There have been a bit too many songs in excess of seven minutes on the last few albums. These could be curtailed a bit and still be great, or better, songs. I have felt that the so-called epics are a bit devalued now. In the eighties there used to be one song above seven minutes and it was the centrepiece of the album. Now an Iron Maiden song needs to be 18 minutes long to stand out.
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In my humble opinion, since the reunion there have been some examples of songs where the quality does not justify their length (Shadows of the Valley, The Man Who Would be King, The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg, No More Lies, The Nomad), but for the most part I do not have a problem with the length of Maiden songs.
 
Poto said:
Are they on the internet?
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I cannot find them. The Dance of Death ones were, as far as I can remember, less structured than those for A Matter of Life and Death. By that time Kevin had been asked by Rod to write the diary, but this was being published - I think - without the content being sanctioned by Smallwood, which was not the case for The Final Frontier.
 
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