Killers: Album Discussion

22 The Avenue

22 The Avenue

Nomad
This thread is for the album "Killers".
Note: No intention to take away from the killers concept album thread.

The second and final album featuring Paul Di'Anno is one that leaves me feeling so-so about it as an entire album. I have now heard IM, Killers and NOTB and Killers is IMO, the weakest album thus far.
It started off great. The Ides of March, Wrathchild and Murders in the Rue Morgue are an excellent three song set and I'd love to hear them live. In fact, wrathchild sounds like a song that would be awesome to start a live show with.
Then... the rest of the album left me very disappointed. I did listen to this multiple times and try to let the album "sink in" but it never really did. Prodigal Son and Killers are notable songs that slightly stand out from the remaining album. I just wish it wasn't so forgettable past it's introduction. Maybe it will grow on me more over time and after I listen to more of the discography.
I suppose it is a middle of the line album, but IM and NOTB were just so epic that it didn't compare.

I'm sorry if you're a Killers fan. This is just my opinion and maybe it'll change as I go along.
 
To me, this album is based around Killers and Murders and Wrathchild. I think you're underselling how good of a song Killers is - it's almost unique in Iron Maiden's history in its style and its sound, but manages to be quite good.
 
Killers is a good song but it's disserviced by being smack dab in the middle of seven other so-so, at best, songs. I think sometimes a song that would be stronger elsewhere in an album, or even on another album, is brought down by the momentum at that time in the album.
 
Genghis Khan and Purgatory are among the best songs of the album. Murders has a great opening, but I find it too full with vocals and it takes long before that great harmony starts (I am always getting impatient, when I hear these zillion couplets that are all the same). Wrathchild suffers a bit from overexposure, but still a great track of course.
 
It's in the lower half of the discography and is made up mostly of leftover material or quickly written tracks,
But I love the macabre intensity and black humour and it is so well-produced. Thematically it hangs together very well, more so than Beast.
Purgatory, Murders and Killers are among the band's fastest, nastiest tracks.

PS: Check out the Beast Over Hammersmith version of Drifter. Shows the true potential of what is one of the album's weaker tracks.
 
Apart from Ides, there's no bad songs on the album. However, there's at least 4 meh songs on it also, and Prodigal Son isn't everyone's cup of tea (although I personally like it). The title track, Murders, Wrathchild and Purgatory are all great tracks though, and Genghis is pretty solid also.
 
^ this. I don't like Drifter, the rest is great. Another Life is a bit repetitive and so are Murders In The Rue Morgue but both are really OK tracks. As Foro said, Wrathchild is overplayed but the Ides Of March -> Wrathchild combination on record kicks ass. Purgatory is awesome, Genghis Khan is constantly battling for my #1 Killers album track against Twilight Zone.
 
Just listened the entire album: WHAT A DISC! This is a masterpiece, I really do not understand why here it is so underrated. The album contains a number of riff that could fill 4 or 5 other ones. There is no misplaced note, everything sounds great. The bass is thundering, every line is pure genius! The guitars sound wounderfully and the whole rythm is biting. Solos are great. Drums, OMG the drums: a war machine. Pauls style is peculiar: you love it or hate it. Personally, i love him in this album in every single vocal line.

Whole album contains slow parts, melodies, heavy riffs, rock parts, great rythms and beats! One of my top5 Maiden album, and probably of the entire NWOBHM. 10/10 every song, 10/10 the album.
 
I know it's jokingly called "Fillers" by some, and it makes sense to me, because in my opinion it is a very uneven album with some songs I really like and some I don't care for at all, split about even.
Wrathchild, Killers, Murders In The Rue Morgue, Purgatory and Genghis Khan are all great, the rest is MEH. Not awful songs, but just very ordinary, well below Maiden standards.
 
My ratings for the album:

The Ides of March: 5
Wrathchild: 7
Murders in the Rue Morgue: 8
Another Life: 4
Genghis Khan: 7
Innocent Exile: 4
Killers: 8
Prodigal Son: 7
Purgatory: 7
Twilight Zone: 5
Drifter: 3

Overall: 5.90
 
ironbaz said:
Just listened the entire album: WHAT A DISC! This is a masterpiece, I really do not understand why here it is so underrated. The album contains a number of riff that could fill 4 or 5 other ones. There is no misplaced note, everything sounds great. The bass is thundering, every line is pure genius! The guitars sound wounderfully and the whole rythm is biting. Solos are great. Drums, OMG the drums: a war machine. Pauls style is peculiar: you love it or hate it. Personally, i love him in this album in every single vocal line.

Whole album contains slow parts, melodies, heavy riffs, rock parts, great rythms and beats! One of my top5 Maiden album, and probably of the entire NWOBHM. 10/10 every song, 10/10 the album.
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Exactly my thoughts when I first heard it. At the time, AC/DC or even Motörhead could do a whole song with a basic riff, and Priest was doing some pretty simple stuff, and Maiden came out with songs litteraly cramed with fantastic ideas. Genghis Khan or Purgatory are fantastic in that respect.
 
The record as a whole suffer quite a bit from the feeling that it's just been thrown together from all bits and pieces lying around. Some old live classics re-recorded, some new songs, some good, some not so good. It feels very unfocused even if a lot of the songs in themselves are very good. One of the records where I find the sum to be lesser than the parts.
 
Bombusbombus said:
The record as a whole suffer quite a bit from the feeling that it's just been thrown together from all bits and pieces lying around. Some old live classics re-recorded, some new songs, some good, some not so good. It feels very unfocused even if a lot of the songs in themselves are very good. One of the records where I find the sum to be lesser than the parts.
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I can't pretend I agree with this on any level. Killers is one of the most coherent of all the Iron Maiden albums. It's one of those records without any massive stand-out tracks because it is so fucking rock solid all the way through. The whole disc has a similar feel running all the way through it, even through the likes of Prodigal Son which is different on a technical level to all the rest. It just works really well as an album.

Book of Souls could have learned a fuck of a lot from this disc...
 
Agreed. Maiden has a few such "more than the sum of its parts" albums, like 7th son, AMOLAD or X Factor, but Killers is the most prominent case
 
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