The Alchemist

How good is The Alchemist on a scale of 1-10?

  • Total voters
    11
From the beginning this was my favourite song on the TFF album, and it still is. It gets straight to the point with absolutely no fucking around, not the heaviest song on the album but a great rocker nonetheless, another song with excellent guitar soloing on it. A wonderful track. 10/10.
 
8. This is one of Maiden's coolest intros, ever. It has the old Maiden vibe, like on Killers, songs like Invaders. At first, it was my least fave, but I started to appreciate its simplicity and its cut to the chase purpose and it works a lot for me, now. Janick solo is devastating and I love it. I missed only more intricacies on the instrumental section and it would work pretty great live.
 
Now TFF has been fully digested into my system, I'm adamant that The Alchemist is the most important track on the album. It is such a welcome break before the 5 epics that follow it; it helps break the album up nicely. Without it, I think TFF would suffer from pretty bad pacing problems when listened to in one sitting. It could have done with another one like this over Man Who Would Be King IMO.
 
Robbiedbee said:
Now TFF has been fully digested into my system, I'm adamant that The Alchemist is the most important track on the album. It is such a welcome break before the 5 epics that follow it; it helps break the album up nicely. Without it, I think TFF would suffer from pretty bad pacing problems when listened to in one sitting. It could have done with another one like this over Man Who Would Be King IMO.
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:ok:
 
Robbiedbee said:
Now TFF has been fully digested into my system, I'm adamant that The Alchemist is the most important track on the album. It is such a welcome break before the 5 epics that follow it; it helps break the album up nicely. Without it, I think TFF would suffer from pretty bad pacing problems when listened to in one sitting. It could have done with another one like this over Man Who Would Be King IMO.
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I  :ok: with this one even without the strikeout for TMWWBK. I think this is spot on.
 
It's easy to hear that this song is written by Janick. He's made a trademark out of incorporating triple guitar harmonies in his songwriting to a much larger extent than the other guitarists. I think this song is meant to give variation to the album - a break between the ballad and the first big, complex, epic thing - and it delivers. However, it's not a real standout song, so I can't go higher than 8/10 for this either.
 
A rocker in the same vein as Different World or Rainmaker in my opinion. It's nice, it's rocking, but it's not up there with their best material.
I find the constant key changing is the verse great. The first chorus is also great, better than the second chorus.
Sadly Bruce sound a tad tired on this track, which prevents me from like the vocals that much.

7/10
 
I dislike this song for the same reasons I dislike El Dorado, and The Man Who Would Be King. The Vocal Melody. In this song it's a none stop bombardment, and it's exhausting. It drowns out some great music, and that's a shame. And as others have mentioned. Janick's solo is the best on the album.
 
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Chazz Chetly said:
I dislike this song for the same reasons I dislike El Dorado, and The Man Who Would Be King. The Vocal Melody. In this song it's a none stop bombardment, and it's exhausting. It drowns out some great music, and that's a shame. And as others have mentioned. Janick's solo is the best on the album.
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Bruce never shuts up on this one,does he?And why does the song need to have....well I don't know...2 or 3 different choruses?!
 
This song does have some Classic Iron Maiden riffing too. But it's just, meh, to me. Could have been even faster and aggressive I think, if it had it would come to is own better. 6/10
 
The Alchemist was the first song that really grabbed me on my first listen. This song has a really 90s feel to it. Again, Maiden are revisiting old ideas to create something new. But unlike Coming Home, this feels like a different spin on that sound and it truly feels like something new. To me, this is what Fear of the Dark (the album) should've been. While I'm not exactly craving an entire album of songs like this, I also wouldn't mind it. It has a great feel to it, totally left field lyrics from Bruce, and some really great melodic stuff. When I saw the original credits and song lengths for the album I remember expecting another Pilgrim from this, I'm glad that wasn't the result. A shame they didn't do this live, I think it would've came off even better than it does on the album. I honestly feel like part of the reason this song doesn't work for a lot of people is that the band/production doesn't have the energy they usually have. The performances sound tired, even though the music is excellent.

8
 
8/10

A nice, little rocker. Janick's influence is very clear in this song. Great solo. Certainly does it's job before Maiden go epic.
 
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