Question to people like
@Gk1 and
@Magnus who mostly dislike modern Maiden but do like
Senjutsu: why is that? The more I play the album the more I feel like if you don’t care for the previous five records you shouldn’t dig this one either. I’m very interested if there’s something specific about how they did this album or if it just clicks for you where the others don’t.
That is easy. As
@hennkris said, the great and non-repetitive choruses are a huge step in the right direction.
Indeed Stratego and Days of Future Past are songs that were missing in the previous albums.
I feel that most of the songs have real meat on their bones and the structures of Senjutsu, Hell on Earth, Death of the Celts even The Parchment move away from the normal "intro-verse-bridge-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus" structure.
The instrumental parts are long and interesting. The solos I think are the best they have done in ages.
Bruce is ot straining his voice as much. He is in a vocal region where he sound confident and energetic.
But mostly what makes this album so much better for me is that is sounds more focused and with real sentiment for the lack of a better word.
The album is our for more than 5 months now and even the muddy sound -although annoying- is not enough to steer me away from this album.
It is the only album for over 27 years where I honestly thought most songs on each album were fillers. I think just one falls in this category IMO, and even that one (Lost in a lost world) has some good parts.
Of course the album is far from perfect, but it's got some really high "highs".
