Senjutsu - 3rd September 2021

Why fewer?
For me ''epic'' song is 8+ minutes long. AMOLAD has three (or four, if you count ''The Longest Day''... 7:48).

Senjutsu has five songs over 8 minutes.

Number of epics in every reunion album:

BNW - 3 (Dream Of Mirrors, The Nomad and The Thin Line Between Love And Hate)
DOD - 2 (Dance Of Death and Paschendale)
AMOLAD - 3 (Brighter Than A Thousand Suns, For The Greater Good Of God and The Legacy)
TFF - 5 (Satellite 15... The Final Frontier, Isle Of Avalon, The Talisman, The Man Who Would Be King and When The Wild Wind Blows)
TBOS - 4 (If Eternity Should Fail, The Red And The Black, The Book Of Souls and Empire Of The Clouds)
Senjutsu - 5 (Senjutsu, Lost In A Lost World, Death Of The Celts, The Parchment and Hell On Earth)

TFF and Senjutsu are the leaders (so far).
 
TFF doesn’t make sense for an epic. Running time should’t be the only metric, or Angel and the Gambler counts as an epic too.
 
TFF doesn’t make sense for an epic. Running time should’t be the only metric, or Angel and the Gambler counts as an epic too.
Interesting point. I have always considering running time to be the metric for classifying a maiden epic. Because most times these songs come with story telling aspects. I suppose the main characteristics would be long instrumental sections and progressive song structures. TFF does not fall in that category.
 
At the same time I do understand that there are a lot of new generation maiden fans that would be seeing them for the first time or even old fans outside of Europe, Americas and Australia that do not get a chance to see them often. For those fans, not playing Fear of the Dark or Run to the hills would be a disservice

Then again, it's highly subjective which songs one considers "most essential" and whether the good yet routine performance of, say, The Trooper or Fear of the Dark is better than a very intense take on something like Die With Your Boots On or Children of the Damned. When I attended my first Maiden gig in 2011, it was the new stuff and Dance of Death I was most excited about. Then again, I definitely understand that there's quite a lot of fans who think this very differently and to be fair, the setlist staples have sounded quite good during the last couple of tours and LOTB concept managed to breath some new life into them - especially The Trooper and Fear of the Dark. :)

...I guess my point got lost somewhere, but um. I'm just saying that while there is a good reason for certain songs to be played, it's also true that they simply can't include every essential classic to every set and there's always people who're disappointed with some of the setlist decisions and there's always a song or two I'd prefer to swap to something else, so...

I'm all for lots of setlist variety & new stuff.
 
Exactly. So epic isn’t defined by song length so much as having multiple parts, tempo changes, not having a verse/chorus/verse structure, and generally a climax or two along the way.

I’m confident we’ll get atleast 5 epics on Senjutsu and not just 5 lengthy songs.
 
The most striking aspect to the cover art for me is that it has a red logo, albeit all metal and scarred.
This is only the seventh studio album to have a red logo, the previous six representing the six current band members(if you squint you'll even see a resemblance!):

Iron Maiden - Dave (originally more orange than red)
Killers - H
Beast - Bruce
Piece - Nicko
Prayer - Janick
Frontier - Steve (translucent red, metal surround)

So, who's this? Rod? Someone from the east I don't recognize? That keyboard player?
I think it could be Eddie himself...
 
Exactly. So epic isn’t defined by song length so much as having multiple parts, tempo changes, not having a verse/chorus/verse structure, and generally a climax or two along the way.

I fully agree yet from your previous post I understood that you don’t consider To Tame a Land an epic.

Cool definition by the way!
 
TFF doesn’t make sense for an epic. Running time should’t be the only metric, or Angel and the Gambler counts as an epic too.
Epic to me is more about song structure rather than length. Hallowed or Revelations can be classed as epic even though they're just over 6 minutes. Multiple arrangements, tempo/key changes etc.

AATG is 8 minutes of the same riff and chorus repeated 735 times so I wouldn't class it as epic, just too long.

Ultimately the epic nature of a song isn't about how long it is but how it feels (that's what she said, ooh-er etc).
 
I fully agree yet from your previous post I understood that you don’t consider To Tame a Land an epic.

Cool definition by the way!
Thanks man! My post was confusing…TTAL ticks those boxes to be defined as an epic but personally I do not find it “epic”. I guess I meant it is an underwhelming song to me despite being an epic.

Hoping for five or six spectacular sounding epics on Senjutsu!!
 
Which is the prominent/dominant colour of the album cover? Maybe grey... (because of Eddie's armor and face colour).

I would have said green, but the background is too dark green.
 
Given the new album is ~80 minutes long, and supposing a setlist length of ~100 minutes (based on the last concert I attended, Zagreb 2018) if they played the full album they would have room for 3, maybe four additional songs.

I wouldn't be opposed to it, but at the same time I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of the longer songs were omitted and the time used to play more of the shorter classics. 13 or 14 songs with 10 off the new album (and probably IM, Trooper and FOTD as the other three) will be less interesting to casual audiences than 16 or 17 songs with 8 off the new album.
 
Well... That interview with our favourite Brexiteer...

He doesn't seem as enthusiastic as before the release of TBOS. Hell, he even passively criticised Hell On Earth... IDK. It's a bit strange.
I wouldn't call that passive criticism - it's just Bruce's humour
 
Official merch with the album cover in red background:

btw, Eddie is in full grey mode.
 

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Just a quick one to say - Maiden have never been, and will never be, a nostalgia act.

When they're doing their "classics" tours, they let people know it's exactly that.

When they tour a new album, which they do for every album, they let people know exactly that too.

If you're one of these stuck in the past balding biker types who only wants to hear Di'anno era stuff, tough shit! It was forty years ago! Listen to Live at the Rainbow or Maiden Japan and enjoy the shit out of it, like we all do.

But when a tour comes around and it's named after the album, with the art work, posters and everything named after the album, what do you expect?

Life is now, it's not decades ago. Live in this moment, enjoy these songs and performances.
 
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