New single: Stratego

Samantas5855 said:
Ocean Is Black The Devil's Track
best part
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My favorite part is the entire song!
But especially the parts:
Look at my eyes
I am ready to fall
with the gallopping and chugging guitars! Really powerful, genius songwriting!

Btw. for sound aficionados: I have a low end Sennheiser headphone, which is strong midrange-wise, and I listen to it via Spotify AND via YT (just because of the flag HA) and both sound GREAT!

Favorite single of mine since BNW.
 
Gk1 said:
To begin with, I do not think that any of us is here just to bash Maiden. And to make a long story short I think that since we are here posting we always give chences to the new Maiden albums. If the sound quality is so depended on the medium used, well this is a first for me. I never expereienced such problems with other bands. don't really care if it is due to the live recording or whatever, it keeps me from enjoying my favorite band and this frustrates me. Maiden helped me through rough periods of my life and it sucks to see them still have sound issues EVEN AFTER HIRING A REAL PRODUCER AS H/Bruce wanted for their return.
I think we have completely lost the plot here while trying to excuse Maiden for their choices.
They want to get the live feel. To mean this mreans that they should also get the right speed for the songs. Thus I would also expect that they would not have to play thme 20% faster live as to get any punch out of them.
for God's sake people, IESF live is 50+ sec faster, keeping in mind that more than too minutes are prerecorded, makes this being 50 sec faster for a 6 minute duration. Are you kidding me?? So IMO they do not even get the live vibe as to cmpensate for the lack of sound clarity.
So this process ends up

1) In a sound quality that is far from ideal, whether we like it or not

2) Songs that sound gutless and slow

3) While also having mistakes and rythm deviations.

IMO there was nothing wrong with what Martin did, with his clear and timeless productions. They can spend as much time they want in the studio, they got all the money in the world. Come on nwo guys, we love them but cut me some sluck, will you???

I read people's comments about the people who just want the classics and moan (like me I guees???). I believe this is barely the case, Maiden is such a huge name that even my mother givres them a chance with every new release and even she can tell that there is something worng with the sound. In here we even went as far as saying that Firepower sounds artificial, are you for real???

We do love Maiden but I think we need to keep a measure somehow!!!
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I think that where you keep tripping up — and have since Book of Souls — is in consistently conflating your opinion of Maiden's "choices" with fact.

It's OK, that you and your mom don't like the sound, and it is OK to point that out. But your ongoing insistence that when people don't agree with your opinion, we've somehow "lost the measure" is tiresome.

Everyone should not have to interpret and judge Maiden's choices by your criteria.

Azas said:
When people does not have a real argument (because clearly there is some issues with the sound), they say "ah, it's the play classics crowd", "you hate modern Maiden". They are for real? :D To me Stratego is a GREAT song. But this is 7th reunion album, and for a band of this level and stature, there still is some issues with the sound. Wtf? Metallica's Ulrich defended his choice of drum sound on St. Anger, but on the next album drums sounded better. He clearly listened to people's opinion. Sure DM was clipping as hell and Ulrich defended his artistic decision, but Hardwared is produced much better. Band clearly heared people's opinions. With Maiden it's different, they still create great songs, but they don't listen to people's moaning about the sound (in general). Please, stop degrading those who feel that Bruce 'sings under the pillow', "guitars are muddy", or "you must buy this super fancy stereo system in order to be able hear Maiden's music in it's full glory" etc. We moan, because we feel, that the band has so much more potential soundwise. It's MIGHTY MAIDEN, for f*ks sake. There is some issues. So far, very minor. I don't have opinion about Senjutsu sound quality yet, I am waiting for album to be released. We will see.
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And please stop degrading those who don't feel that way.
 
mckindog said:
I think that where you keep tripping up — and have since Book of Souls — is in consisting conflating your opinion of Maiden's "choices" with fact.

It's OK, that you and your mom don't like the sound, and it is OK to point that out. But your ongoing insistence that when people don't agree with your opinion, we've somehow "lost the measure" is tiresome.

Everyone should not have to interpret and judge Maiden's choices by your criteria.



And please stop degrading those who don't feel that way.
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:notworthy::notworthy::notworthy::notworthy:
 
I think it's bloody nice to at least have one premium Metal band go for an organic sounding approach. Sure, there are a couple of tweaks I'd like with Stratego, but man, this sounds alive. Plenty of overhead and room mic sound, along with close mics and a bit of sample reinforcement. This sounds "real". This is old school Heavy Metal sound, and the closest to 80's Birch I've heard them sound with Shirley at the helm. Is it perfect? No, again, there are things I'd like to change and there are a couple of actual production errors as well, but I don't care. This fan quest (read: whine) for the holy grail sound is just detracting from the music at this point.
 
Yax said:
I think it's bloody nice to at least have one premium Metal band go for an organic sounding approach. Sure, there are a couple of tweaks I'd like with Stratego, but man, this sounds alive. Plenty of overhead and room mic sound, along with close mics and a bit of sample reinforcement. This sounds "real". This is old school Heavy Metal sound, and the closest to 80's Birch I've heard them sound with Shirley at the helm. Is it perfect? No, again, there are things I'd like to change and there are a couple of actual production errors as well, but I don't care. This fan quest (read: whine) for the holy grail sound is just detracting from the music at this point.
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Amen brother!
 
Yax said:
I think it's bloody nice to at least have one premium Metal band go for an organic sounding approach.
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Best drums I've heard in a while. The song has a constant drive as it were clicked in a grid, but it isn't. It's all live and it's all Nicko. I think Charlie Watts is his #1 influence today.

People that mix Maiden with modern metal aesthetics are beyond reason. Maiden has always been a bass and drums driven band.
 
giratina said:
Is it just me or does this song feels way shorter than 5 minutes ?
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Totally agree.

I read somewhere a comment saying that they cannot write short songs anymore and it should be cut down to 3.5 minutes! Damn, you surely cannot satisfy everyone!
 
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On this board there are people that cut and paste their own arrangements, and people that disregard Maiden songs forever, as in they don't ever listen to them.
 
I listen through a £10 pair of headphones and have no issues with the sound. I can hear everything fine and there's a ton of nice texture if I'm paying attention. No complaints here, other than the fact Maiden have been holding out on us with the gloriously cheesy 80s synth choruses for all this time.

Early days but this has hooked me like few songs do. I really love it and if any of the remaining songs come even close to it then I'll count myself very lucky indeed.
 
MaidenUlster said:
A polite reminder that it is perfectly possible to be a huge Iron Maiden fan, including their post 1999 material, *and* to think that Bruce's vocals are a little too low in the mix on this track.
When you truly love something you can admit its flaws.
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I think it is about finding balance. This is maidenfans forum and therefore your only existance should not be to complain all the time. The positives should outweigh the negatives. I think that is what gets most people annoyed, the incessant complaining on multiple threads on the same thing. There are also a few that would happily derail an entire thread just to win an arguement. Happened few days back with metallica stuff on the senjutsu thread. Some people cannot seem to agree to disagree and move on.
 
MaidenUlster said:
A polite reminder that it is perfectly possible to be a huge Iron Maiden fan, including their post 1999 material, *and* to think that Bruce's vocals are a little too low in the mix on this track.
When you truly love something you can admit its flaws.
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I keep hearing this “low in the mix complaint” and I just don’t see it when watching/listening to the song. His voice is more mellow in a lower range but he’s up front and crystal clear to me. I’m certainly not saying folks are making it up, I just can’t hear it on my end.
 
It's okay to share things you want to see done differently, it's when it gets to the stage of constant gripes that it gets very old and bland. I think what bothers me the most is the constant hearkening for times past, as if the way things are today is some sort of mistake or error. Well, Steve doesn't think so, and he pretty much has the only vote that matters!
 
chaosapiant said:
I keep hearing this “low in the mix complaint” and I just don’t see it when watching/listening to the song. His voice is more mellow in a lower range but he’s up front and crystal clear to me. I’m certainly not saying folks are making it up, I just can’t hear it on my end.
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Subtlety is lost on metal fans a lot of the time. Bruce is holding back during the verses, it's obviously on purpose to create whatever sort of mood it is they are going for with the lyrics and narrative of the song. He's singing softly and in a lower register rather than belting it out. But metal fans aren't able to understand such, very basic, aesthetic choices and can only see it as a production fuck up.

It's the same with mixing. "I CAN BARELY HERE TEH GUITAR MALADY IN TEH CHORIS, SHIRLEY AND HARRIS IS TEH SUX!!!11", never thinking for a second that maybe they only want you to barely hear that melody.
 
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giratina said:
This is absurd. What parts should be removed to make it 3.5 minutes ? The song is not repetitive at all.
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This is the most laughable comment of all* The structure of that song is so tight it's unbelieveable, hadly any flab. The solo is probably twice as long as a solo in a usual pop single length track, but otherwise everything is the bare minimum. Intro only 4 measures, no bridge between verses, a chorus left out, outro only two measures before the ending. Maybe the mysterious part after the solo could be considered an indulgence but it's only 4 measures again. It runs to 5 minutes because there's a lot of words, and again this is metal caveman shit, the idea that words and meaning are somehow superfluous.


EDIT: * for clarity I'm not saying @giratina's comment is laughable, I agree with it completely, it's the other comment about it I find laughable.
 
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