New Single - The Writing on the Wall

My first thought was “wow this sounds a bit 70s for Maiden,” but I remember feeling that way about Speed of Light too initially and feeling that way less over time. I like the instrumental work, the vocals are growing on me. Definitely sounds better on streaming services. As a track I think I like their previous two singles better, but this is still very good. I think it will grow on me. The mid tempo sound and long instrumental seems like a weird choice for a first single. I wonder if that’s indicative of a less accessible album coming. Big AMOLAD vibes.

Whoever compared it to DoD production is pretty spot on imo, it has that similarly textured sound with the acoustic guitars, but much better mastering. Kinda somewhere between AMOLAD and DOD, way better than Book of Souls. Guitar sound is fantastic.

Solos?:
Dave
Adrian
 
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.
 
Twarkle said:
Posting an article that simply questions whether a format is silly or not, that has been refuted many times, does not mean it sounds worse. No point in getting into the “Golden Ear” argument here though, there are plenty of forums that do that.
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Im digressing now and sorry for that.
Anyways the article is on xiph, the organisation that created FLAC.
It was enough scientific evidence (and samples to test yourself) about why theres no reason to exceed 48khz. Human ears have a range and 96khz is double that. Plus for every amplifier (like a DAC) the more frequencies you give it the more probable it is that it will intermodulate
 
Yax said:
It is about the medium as well as the mastering. The vinyl medium doesn't allow for as heavy compression and hot levels and subsequently the mastering compression is far more forgiving.

And 10 dB is roughly accurate. I don't just put it through a dynamic range meter software you know.
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If anything vinyls have less dynamic range than a CD. There are hot vinyls out there, thankfully TBOS is actually mastered differently (for the best) than the CD
 
Good song, but nothing super spectacular. I do love that it's different from the norm, with that jangly, Southern Rock style going on. Bruce isn't reaching out of his range on it, so I thought he sounded great. Only disappointment was that there wasn't an album title/release date reveal at the end of the video.

Curious to see if they stop the Instagram clues or if they'll switch things up from WOTW to skew toward clues about the album title, etc. It was a bit of whiplash with the Maiden team doing absolutely nothing on social media for so long in regards to the album, and then jumping into a pretty engaging daily easter egg hunt leading up to the single reveal. Very cool.
 
matic22 said:
If lyrics are by Ade (which is plausible, although VERY suprising), Bruce probably wrote the vocal melody.
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Maiden's youtube channel also credit Adrian as lyricist. That's very surprising for me.

Edit: Looks like it's auto generated by youtube. Not entirely sure what that means, but I still suspect Bruce wrote the lyrics.
 
Josh said:
Yeah sorry but when Adrian Smith rubs his knob all over a song the last thing I think of is "This isn't creative enough".

It's just a single off of an album. I have every bit of confidence the album will be awesome.
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I believe the album will be better too, I usually dont like the singles
 
Samantas5855 said:
Im digressing now and sorry for that.
Anyways the article is on xiph, the organisation that created FLAC.
It was enough scientific evidence (and samples to test yourself) about why theres no reason to exceed 48khz. Human ears have a range and 96khz is double that. Plus for every amplifier (like a DAC) the more frequencies you give it the more probable it is that it will intermodulate
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I am familiar with the article and understand the science and math behind it. I wasn’t making a claim of, “I have magic ears and can hear the difference between the formats in an A/B test”. I was never making that argument, I simply took issue with the blanket statement that 24/96=bad, while 16/44 is good.

That isn’t an absolute, and that isn’t what the xiph article states. It states that sample rates over 48k have no value, and can have a negative value dependent on other factors, not that they always do. That isn’t the same as one always sounds bad, the other sounds good. And obviously different DACs deal with intermodulation differently and/or better than others, but I’m not someone who has a hi-res library to begin with.

My collection is almost entirely 44.1 kHz cds (I had over 3000 cds dating back to my first purchase in 1987, took me 15 years to rip everything, yeah, I’m lazy).

Edited for clarity and multiple dreadful spelling errors.
 
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My $0.02:
  • I really like what Adrian is doing here, cool riffs and awesome solo. Yes, it's different, and that's great. At this point he may be the MVP of the band.
  • Caveman's production is still annoyingly muddy, albeit perhaps less than usual. I can hear some separation between the guitars when I listen on headphones (Apple Music), but Steve is too low in the mix.
  • Bruce's lyrics are MOSTLY good. I wonder if the song was COVID-influenced, perhaps not if the album was in the can in 2019 like the rumors say, but its apocalyptic theme is appropriate nonetheless. I wrote "MOSTLY" because the lyrics kinda fall apart in the chorus. "Can you see that writing"?? Come on. That's just lazy. Another line there would have been better.
  • Bruce's vocal performance is mixed. He is still trying to sing like he's in his 30s or 40s. Noticeable vocal strain. When he sings in a lower octave -- i.e., in his current range -- he sounds very good, but he should stop trying to hit the high notes. We understand, it's OK, you're in your 60s, we don't expect the Air Raid Siren anymore.
  • I enjoyed the video. Gives off a Mad Max vibe. Not sure how a samurai Eddie fits in with the Belshazzar/Babylon theme, but whatever, the video was fun.
  • Perhaps the best praise I can give the song is that, even though it is long, >6 minutes, it held my attention and never felt too long (like some recent Maiden does).
 
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Samantas5855 said:
I believe the album will be better too, I usually dont like the singles
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El Dorado was worse than this and I'll even say so was Speed Of Light and Different World. Even Wildest Dreams and Wicker Man were run of the mill. This is just a little different and I like it. Hopefully the album blows us both away.
 
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