Senjutsu - 3rd September 2021

Gk1 said:
Well it has been clear for quite some time now that they are the driving/decision making force these days. Steve is the co-producer and they both seem to spend most of their time in UK (or so I think). It is not unusual that this happens. I heard that this is the case for other bands to especially during the covid era.
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And realising that being stuck thousands of miles apart meant they themselves couldn’t be in the video – Bruce is in London and Janick is in Newcastle, but Steve is in the Bahamas, Nicko in Florida, Dave in Hawaii, and Adrian is, Bruce reckons, somewhere in either America or the UK – the singer realised the solution was just the problem in different clothes.

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Today, according to Bruce, of the people who made Senjutsu, only he and Steve Harris have actually heard the final, finished, mixed and mastered product. The only reason he has a version of his own is because he copied Steve’s off his laptop when he was round at his house last year working on mixes for the Live In Mexico release.

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The Way Of The Samurai: Uncover the secrets of Iron Maiden’s new…

In a world-exclusive interview, Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson reveals how the band's 17th album, Senjutsu, came to be, how they managed to keep it under wraps, and much more.
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Gk1 said:
Well it has been clear for quite some time now that they are the driving/decision making force these days. Steve is the co-producer and they both seem to spend most of their time in UK (or so I think).
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I guess you're right. They are also heavily involved with the stage design for the tours (Rod too?).
 
As far as “Empire” goes, it’s been one of my favorite Maiden songs — possibly my favorite period — since I first heard it. I think it fits the album really well, and TMOS does a great job leading to it. It’s amazing not because every single part is brilliant, but because of how they work together to drive the story.

Sure, you can break things down and get really analytical with this one. The main riff is taken from “Rime”, one of the main riffs in the instrumental is taken from “The Legacy”, Bruce strains a lot, there’s fake orchestra on here, the song repeats itself incredibly often, etc etc etc. BUT. It’s these things that make the song much more powerful to me. The fact that it repurposes music of Maiden’s past and makes it work is so cool. The fact that Bruce is straining adds to the severity of the song. The fake orchestra doesn’t actually hold the song back, lazy decision or not. And the repetition serves to keep building the narrative.

And the best part? The story itself. This is easily Bruce’s magnum opus as a storyteller. I love his — as Judas would say — thesaurus usage in a lot of his lyrics, it feels mystical with a shade of darkness to it. But here he combines a bit of that poetry with an actual narrative and boy does it hit hard. Every single line is brilliant. He’s still using metaphors but you know exactly what’s happening in the story. And the music takes up the slack where the lyrics drop out. You know exactly what’s happening to the airship at any given moment. And the climax, “Oh the dreamers may die, but the dreams live on...” Man. It’s so good.

I try not to listen to “Empire” too much any more to preserve its spark, but whenever I do I always love it. It’s like a film put to music, or, like LC has said, the ultimate metal disaster ballad.
 
Zare said:
It's actually a sensible thought.

I did not think VXI is bad but I thought it's one of their worst albums. I was not that enamored with BNW either although I've liked the album on release, I thought something like Chemical Wedding is miles ahead of both, and when DoD came out I was already on another train station. I was not aware of a new Maiden album and I didn't like it that much when it came out. Everyone was screaming Paschendale I think it's a good song (not that good on the album tho), nowhere near the hype.

I heard MP3s officially released at AMOLAD time and I did not get it at all. I just didn't.

Recall talking to a friend saying Maiden have gone into some direction I don't understand. And I've been already high on progressive metal train at that point. I remember saying Maiden beats, melodies, riffs, I don't get any more. The weird phrasing of the voice over a dull 'metal' riff such as Thousand Suns over an irregular drum beat. Huh

At that late 2006 the thing that got me "back" into Maiden was one of the stuff that brought me in in the first place. Somewhere In Time. After some years of listening to 'technical' music I remember being awestruck over guitar sound and Smith solos on the record. I thought to myself, well this is highly technical. Maybe not overly complex but god damn these guys can play. That got me back. And soon after, Benjamin Breeg came on random shuffle and I got hooked.

So to TLDR - reunion Maiden wasn't an insta-hit for me, at least after BNW. It took some time to click, it did after a few years. The point is, if that didn't happen, I am not sure I would be around here.

What Mosh meant is how can you not have enthusiasm about the band's new material and still hang around for decades?
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My experience with reunion Maiden was pretty similar. I felt like BNW and DoD were pretty on par with each other and not to the level of classic era Maiden. You could take a few songs from each and make one great album. Cool that Maiden were making new music, but the albums were pretty similar in tone and not as special or adventurous as the old stuff. AMOLAD really started to click for me in 2010 and later that year the release of TFF really validated the reunion period. DoD and BNW have grown on me, although I also think the differences in quality between the two albums continue to grow with time.

I think the context is different in the 2000’s. A lot of 80s bands were reuniting and the standard approach seemed to be to make 1 or 2 albums that attempted to recapture the old glory days and then milk a few nostalgia tours before going back into retirement. Maiden could have made one or two reunion albums and then called it quits, in which case the band would be recognized for their classic era and nothing else. Now, we’re 21 years removed from Brave New World, this lineup has been more prolific than any other, and they continue to evolve in the studio. A song like Empire of the Clouds would never exist on Brave New World. Even singles like Speed of Light and Writing On the Wall take different approaches than what I hear on those earlier reunion albums. If they were still making BNW-like albums, I think we’d be having a different conversation right now. And, of course, they still play all this material live and treat it as being important. There’s enough material there that you could get into Maiden now and prefer the reunion era, which isn’t uncommon around here.
 
The only problem of the post-reunion Maiden albums is the sound and it is an inexplicable one. I get having one album with production issues but six (yes the new one sounds good only compared to other post reunion albums, not in general) is the weirdest thing in music history for such a huge band. The music is fine, great even. Shirley is a great producer in general. Just doesn’t make sense.
 
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I just listened to the Burning a couple of times. It is obvious which parts belong to Steve.....if they are indicative of the way he approached the new album...I am in deep problem. I know this is not on topic but what is wrong with their singer???His voice is not even funny!
 
New ad showing the various versions (except for the fanclub box set) is on Maiden's Facebook page. Background music is from WOTW only though.
 
Consodering DOD came out in 2003 and the 5.1 DVDAudio a year later, the fact that TWOTW BLU RAY is DTS (that means 7.1 right?), the fact that atmos is more complex than 5.1 and the fact that Kevin's post about atmos was fairly recenet, I believe there is a possibility of a full album BLU RAY release in 2022
 
Gk1 said:
I just listened to the Burning a couple of times. It is obvious which parts belong to Steve.....if they are indicative of the way he approached the new album...I am in deep problem. I know this is not on topic but what is wrong with their singer???His voice is not even funny!
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You just hate everything, don't you? :D
 
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Gk1 said:
I just listened to the Burning a couple of times. It is obvious which parts belong to Steve.....if they are indicative of the way he approached the new album...I am in deep problem. I know this is not on topic but what is wrong with their singer???His voice is not even funny!
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Level of muscianship are on different levels. I preferred the debut in the end, because it wasn't trying to do Maiden. No one can see Bruce Dickinson singing "The Eyes of the Young" (good song, maybe a bit cheesy) whereas "The Burning" is way outside of the singers good sounding range and with another set of lyrics could have been a rocker for Maiden.

That said, The Burning is really good at times.

Bottom line is that I hardly think you can judge the new Maiden release from that. Some of the songs from it predates The Book of Souls.
 
Zare said:
how can you not have enthusiasm about the band's new material and still hang around for decades?
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Eternal optimism in my case I guess, and loyalty.
The reason I was saddened by @Mosh 's post is that it gave me a huge Manowar vibe ("Go find a forum for a band you actually like (of course I know a lot of these folks just like the attention)" / "Wimps and posers, leave the hall"); and of course my response was tongue-in-cheek not unlike this one:
Magnus said:
No need to be rude you know.
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I don't think you need any of those explanations druže Zare, but just in case.
 
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