One thing that I don't understand (reunion vs. 1980s & early 90s)

Dick Brucinson

Dick Brucinson

The TRUE Dick Brucinson
Does anyone have a plausible explanation for why the classic twin guitar harmonies were and are completely being neglected almost throughout the entire reunion era?
I mean, it used to be a trademark for Maiden ever since, perhaps THE trademark. Thinking of The Clairvoyant, Aces High, The Trooper - just to name a few.

The neglect of those twin guitar harmony parts still would have made sense to me if they had continued with only one guitar after Adrian's departure back in the day. But he is back for a long time yet and they actually have THREE guitars.

Why do they consequently not use the potential of three guitars - but come up instead with long intros and repeating patterns?

This is one of the least understandable developments in their entire career to me. (A misstep, comparable to if the Beatles had only let Ringo sing everything from 1966 onwards.)

Discuss.
 
The absence of prominent guitar harmonies - interplays, interludes, intersections, whatever you want to call them - along with the “live in the studio” recording approach, is the biggest flaw of the reunion for me. They essentially threw one of their greatest musical trademarks into the bin - something that could have been fully integrated into the songs. Just mind-blowing.

My not-so-serious speculation: Phil Lynott died - no more Thin Lizzy albums - and Steve forgot how cool guitar harmonies are and drifted AWAY.

Yeah, most likely, by the end of the ’80s, Steve had started listening to different, newer music, which probably influenced his songwriting approach.
 
I don't understand it either (even more than the ''live in the studio'' approach), especially with 3 guitars. I think Steve really changed his writing style around 1995. Maybe he always wanted more prog rock with melodies (long intros and outros too, ofc) than classic harmonies and their 80s style again (something new), though he loves both. But the thing is, they can do both perfectly enough, and not for every song for good measure.

Harmonies aren't completely abandoned from the Reunion songs, every album has a few of them (apart from SJ, which is really unfortunate, especially when you have a hollow part in a song), but they were like more common until 2006 (like the balance of the material and pace). Interestingly, they played harmonies on some songs live, not originally on their studio versions (No More Lies comes to mind).
 
There's as much twin and three part melodies on Maiden albums as the past, they just aren't in thirds. Adrian has said Steve thinks thirds are cliched.
 
I can't hear thirds in my head as I sit here but I'm guessing they are the cool bits, the parts of all the great rock/metal songs that made me fall in love with it in the first place. So yah, I can see how someone who's been playin this music for 50yrs might find such things clichéd and how their songwriting would change over time.
 
Honestly, I believe it has to do with the success of Fear of the Dark (the title track, not the album).

Steve wrote an anthem with simple, singable guitar lines, and it became one of the most popular metal songs of all time. The song is long, but not particularly complex. A lot of individual parts are simply variations on previous parts and riffs. That's not a bad thing, it does explain why it is such a catchy and approachable song despite its length though.

Twin leads like Aces High's or The Trooper's will get the blood pumping, but nothing will get the crowds chanting like the melodies in FotD. It almost has a football stadium atmosphere, and I believe that's something Steve appreciates. The way he writes epics fundamentally changed post-FotD.
 
To paraphrase a well-known song: Fear of the Dark killed the Harmonies Star.

So… I guess Steve isn’t aware that his current approach to intros and outros became clichéd a long time ago and really needs to be reversed - back toward a richer use of guitar harmonies, which are melodic, heavy, moving, and goosebump-inducing in themselves. Back to the roots - “Our glory days have just begun, and we are part of the nuclear one.” Once again.
 
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