New Single - The Writing on the Wall

Josh said:
Sounding like what? It's a Maiden song. They've done much worse than this. Remember Wasting Love? Remember the entire shitfest that was No Prayer For The Dying? Remember Weekend Warriors? Remember The Angle and The Gambler? Like come on. It's the slow song on the album and it does it better than most.
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Thanks a lot, I had managed to wipe Weekend Warriors from my memory for the past 29 years until just now.

Bringing home NPFTD on release day and hearing it was the first time I experienced feeling that level of disappointment with a new album from a band I loved.
 
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Samantas5855 said:
Ive bitched a lot today about one song, I listened to it a few more times.
The sad thing about it is that it's a political song, thus the Be Quick Or Be Dead refference in the teaser. Political IM songs are usually not good (be quick or be dead is fucking awesome btw). After all this campaign I expected a song talking about Babylon and not one using it as a metaphor to talk politics (From Hollywood to Babylon? Wtf is this?). But the biggest let down was the intro, I was watching the countdown and then it happened, and boy was it a letdown, it sounded like southern/country rock which I really despise. This intro just isn't maiden and that's not a good thing, it's not unique it just doesn't fit. The poster was Black Metal why did it start like that. I like how the second solo starts. Overall boring and plain song, nothing special. The video clip is nice, it shows a lot of care was put into it, much better than the camp chaos ones still not what I would expect from a maiden video clip, I just needed something more bad ass and adrenaline pumping.
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I share your annoyance 1. on the lack of any proper link to Babylon and 2. on the fact it doesn't sound like Maiden...

For those who wanted the Dickinson/Smith feel of Bruce solo material in Maiden, here's a minor shot.

I've always been more interested in what Harris comes up with, so fingers crossed.

7/10 is my rating ... I guess it could widen Maiden's fanbase within the general rock crowd. Plus the video is built for Gen Z kids. So its a smart single. But for me, the Maiden 'feel' is quite under pronounced.
 
MindlessPieces said:
Am I missing something here? Why do IM have to write stuff about Babylon?
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They don't, but there are explicit references in the promo: Belshazzar's Feast, Daniel, and the writing on the wall.

So it was reasonable to think that Maiden may have written about this topic. Instead Bruce seems to have used Babylon's fall as loose inspiration for a fantasy/apocalypse tale. Which is perfectly fine, but I would have preferred (and was expecting) a historical epic theme instead.

The video and theme actually strikes me as quite kiddish, but it's just personal taste really. I'm sure others love the fantasy/apocalypse setting and that's fine also.
 
This is far from the first time that Maiden took a loose lyrical concept and created a lot of thematic material around it in the form of posters/artwork/etc. In fact, that’s pretty much what they do best. Almost every album they’ve made has a rich concept in the artwork and title but it usually only relates to a few songs (if that). Not surprised that it’s the case here so far too.
 
First solo has to be Dave, his tone is there, and it’s all bluesy pentatonic stuff. Adrian’s solo uses more range, more intervallic playing, and scale patterns outside of the pentatonic scale. Both solos are pretty typical of the respective player imo.
 
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