Maiden new album in 2014

Night Prowler said:
I'm sure the new album will have great songs regardless of length, so I'm more concerned about the production/sound which has been hit (BNW, AMOL&D) & miss (DOD, TFF) in the reunion era.
Click to expand...

I myself like TFF's production a lot. Only reservation is that it would benefit from a slight, narrow dip around 2 khz on the vocals and guitars. The drum sound is immense.
 
Yea I don't know what people have against TFF's production, I think it sounds great. I wouldn't have minded multitracked vocals on a few songs though.
 
I think some may find it a bit too dry. I don't though, I think Shirley and Harris were right about it (H wanted more reverb and delay).
 
Indeed. I think that's all it's really missing. I just don't think Maiden can do a big SiT-esque reverb heavy album (now) and do all three guitarists justice. I think that's why Shirley mixed TFF the way he did.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Indeed. I think that's all it's really missing. I just don't think Maiden can do a big SiT-esque reverb heavy album (now) and do all three guitarists justice. I think that's why Shirley mixed TFF the way he did.
Click to expand...

I think Shirley did it because wet production is kind of out of style, and wanted a modern, live sounding record.
 
Yax said:
I think some may find it a bit too dry. I don't though, I think Shirley and Harris were right about it (H wanted more reverb and delay).
Click to expand...
Yea, I was with H on that. But it doesn't bother me too much. Shirley doesn't seem to be a fan of reverb and such anyway. He did the same thing to Rush in the 90's when working with them.
 
Undefined drum sound? No way. BNW's got a immense drum sound as well (and overall a better production. It's brilliant), but I think TFF does too. Maybe you're a bit spoiled with BNW. :D

The single biggest difference between BNW and TFF are the lower mids. There's less than usual on BMW (Steve usually takes up a lot of space there), and I agree that it cleans it up a bit more to remove some of it. Definitely. That's my gripe about Maiden's production anyway. Steve's got too much low mid and upper bass. But it is his sound and so on... But TFF is very, very well balanced. The lower mids are an issue because of how Steve has always wanted his bass sound.
 
I think it makes it a bit muddier than BNW, if you will, because it takes over. I generally dislike Steve's bass sound because as I said, tends to take over and I think, is kinda unbalanced. It's too extreme in the lower mids/upper bass area.
 
It certainly isn't the most conventional bass sound, that's for sure. It pretty much is Maiden's sound though. For me, take out Dave & Steve --and you basically don't have Maiden. What you would be left with would be a class act, no doubt; just not Maiden.
 
But Steve's bass sound isn't what makes maiden. Look at bnw. Steve's bass sound is more conventional there, and I'd argue it is maidens best sounding album,regardless of the rather hot mastering.
 
Brave New World is the most un-Maiden sounding record they have done. It sounds great, but it is also an album very much of its time. Funny thing is that it still isn't played to a metronome, so you get this clean, big production - with songs that speed up like they do live. The Wicker Man is ridiculous when the drums come in...

They could continue on this path they have done, but the most interesting thing would be for them to change things up - a reverb and delay heavy record, for example. Let Adrian write some cool new short song, Janick can do an epic with his awesome melodies and harmonies together with Steve and so on.

Bruce take on it, as I mentioned - was that he wanted the fans to wonder what they would have done next when they decided to disband.
 
I've recently been thinking about what they will do next. My hopes are high for IM16. A Matter of Life and Death and The Final Frontier are probably my two favorite Maiden albums right now, so they're definitely on a path recently that I like. If this is the last, I would love to see them make the best record of their career like I know they are capable of doing.

My absolute dream would be for them to go for an epic even bigger than what they've done before; a song longer than Rime. They've shown a trend toward longer songs lately; I want to see how long they can go while still keeping the level of quality they've always had in their lengthier pieces. Consider The Legacy as a possible blueprint. There's a song with three distinct sections. Now imagine if that song had a fourth section or mood, and if the existing sections incorporated a few other musical ideas (or if the song had solos from all three guitarists instead of just Janick).

Aside from that pipe dream, I just want to see them go further in the direction they've been going with longer, more complex songs making use of all three guitars combined with short but intense songs. This is definitely a band that is capable of making the best album of their career, and I'm hoping to see it next year.
 
I would love for Maiden to go super progressive and have a larger amount of songs that are at least 10 minutes that go all over the place. Something like Maiden's version of Dream Theater. If they did a full 80 minutes of music, they could have 2 songs that are 15 minutes each, 3 songs that are 10 minutes each and then have 20 minutes left for 4-6 minute songs.
 
I would rather Iron Maiden didn't do that. In fact, I'd prefer it if they didn't have as many long songs as they've had on the two most recent albums. Although I know that won't happen.
 
I'd like a mix. TFF actually had a nice balance if you consider S15 and the title song as separate tracks.
The problem was all the long songs were concentrated on "side two."

I prefer to listen to TFF like this:
S15
TFF
El dorado
The Talisman
Avalon
Alchemist
Starblind
Mother of Mercy
TMWWBK
Coming Home
Wild Wind
 
I actually liked how the long songs were saved for the 2nd half. It almost felt like two seperate albums, which was cool. Had a very vinyl-like feel to it.
 
I'm a big fan of epics, but they've got to do a mix of long and short songs, too many super-long ones on one album could just get tedious, in my view.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top