Senjutsu - 3rd September 2021

@Patrick92. Your ranking reflects mine. I put Senjutsu slightly bellow Brave New World, because of Darkest Hour, which I consider the worst song ever recorded by Maiden. I know that many will cite Gangland, The Angel and the Gambler or Bring your Daugther (my former number one), but those are at least real songs, while the former is completely un-melodic; the lyrics are stupid and I can't dicern any attempt to organize them in a decent melody, which is rather ironic given that the man who wrote them has been so verbal about his lyrics being more natural and melodic, against Steve's, that would be more forced. That horrible thing put aside, and the rather mediocre Writing on the Wall, this album is fantastic. BNW has no flaws, even if the highs are less high.
 
GhostofCain said:
There has been the odd turd here and there though (Age of Innocence comes to mind).
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I think Maiden’s consistency has remained about the same since they began. What’s nice about the reunion era is that they have a lot more time they can work with thanks to CDs, and that means they can craft albums with fuller visions and styles. A filler on an ‘80s album sticks out a lot more than a filler does nowadays.
 
harrisdevot said:
@Patrick92. Your ranking reflects mine. I put Senjutsu slightly bellow Brave New World, because of Darkest Hour, which I consider the worst song ever recorded by Maiden. I know that many will cite Gangland, The Angel and the Gambler or Bring your Daugther (my former number one), but those are at least real songs, while the former is completely un-melodic; the lyrics are stupid and I can't dicern any attempt to organize them in a decent melody, which is rather ironic given that the man who wrote them has been so verbal about his lyrics being more natural and melodic, against Steve's, that would be more forced. That horrible thing put aside, and the rather mediocre Writing on the Wall, this album is fantastic. BNW has no flaws, even if the highs are less high.
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Finally someone, who hasthe same feeling about Darkest Hour and WotW. Darkes Hour absolutely ruins the flow of, to that point, most consistent album flow since maybe SSoaSS. WotW is slightly better, mostly because Adrian´s solo, but the main riff is too reminiscent of Rainbow´s 16th Century Greensleeves, howewer the song is better in context of the album and actually adds to the overall album flow.
Those things support the feelings on this forum about Bruce not really caring about music anymore.

But man, if they left Darkest Hour off the album, it could have been one CD and possibly the band´s strongest effort since SIT.
But you have to be happy with what you have to be happy with.
 
In my humble opinion, the album does not flow that well. Lost in a Lost World plods in disc 1, with the quality of the material dropping at the same time; disc 2 begins with a slow song that is followed by 3 (excessively) long songs... I do not think having 3 epics back-to-back to close the album was a good idea.
 
It "plods" ? Well, I consider it the highlight of disc 1 with the title track (whose second part is not as good as the majestic beginning, though).
I don't think the length of three last songs matters, as long as they are good. And the three closing tracks are more than that. And, honestly they are not that long. Metal albums welcome more and more really long tracks, and other genres even more. When you decide to listen to a symphony, you know you will have to get between 20 and 50 minutes of the same musical piece.
The problem with the album's flow is not the slow song: it's the fact that, in an album filled with great melodies (both instrumental and vocal), we've got a song that does not even try to be musical. I've tried to understand that song, to find something in it (apart the great solo, obviously), but I can't even wistle the vocal line. Melody is everything.
 
I'm worried about Kevin Shirley says about it has been very difficult to join all the pieces together…because they work on that way and (this is my opinion) to have Harris beside you on the mixing desk it must be very difficult to work with. In fact sometimes you've got the feeling that parts of the tracks are forced but it doesn't make sense in the flow of the song musically. The first time I noticed about this was in The Book of Souls album with Empire of the clouds song. Instrumentally you can feeling that there are parts that could be recorded in parts because the song instrumentally don't flow right. And when the band have been asking about to play the song live and they say , No I don't think so. It's because they have recorded in parts and to rehearse all the song it would be like to create a new one or learn the whole song because some of them just played some arrangements here and there or they say they're very difficult because the tempo changes…

According with some interviews Bruce says that nobody heard the album done. It's like nobody knows what played in that studio
 
GhostofCain said:
In my humble opinion, the album does not flow that well. Lost in a Lost World plods in disc 1, with the quality of the material dropping at the same time; disc 2 begins with a slow song that is followed by 3 (excessively) long songs... I do not think having 3 epics back-to-back to close the album was a good idea.
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I think the album flows quite well. LIALW is not a slow song (only the intro & the outro) and we have 2 fast short rockers (Stratego and DOFP) plus one lively song (TTM) to compensate in Disc 1. Disc 2 starts slowly, but I think the tempo is good for the next songs - the instrumental section of DOTC is pretty lively, Hell On Earth with its gallop too (only the long intro & outro are really slow) and honestly, it doesn't feel like an 11 minutes long song when I listen to it. Only The Parchment is slow, but with the 6 solos it should help for the flow. I was also worried about having 3 epics back-to-back, but in the end the most important thing is the songs to be good. Btw, I don't like that TFF album has 3 epics back-to-back to close the album or the 3 slow songs back-to-back to close TBOS album, but for this album I think they are perfect... the first one sets the mood, the second one lowers it and the third one is a fusion of the previous two.
 
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