The Book of Souls: General album discussion

MindlessPieces said:
I like Empire of the Clouds.
I'm not a fan of DoG though and I really think disc 2 gets bogged down with two slow ballads back to back with tears of a clown and man of sorrow, if there were just one ballad on the whole album, I think I might take it as something special. But with two, they seem to drag each other down. I actually quite hate it when either one of these songs comes up in my play list.

So that leaves only two good songs from the second disc.
Shadows of the Valley and Empire of the Clouds.

While disc 1 has 6 good songs out of 6.
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I agree with you on the number of quality songs on disc 2 but I don't like SOTV as much as DOG.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
I don't get the hate for River. It has the catchiest verse melody and it has this cool, hard rock feeling... A short Maiden song done completely right. I just can't wrap my head around how so many people like DoG and hate River. It's an utterly alien thought to me. :D
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I don't get it either. That opening after the intro verse is awesome.
 
IT FINALLY HAPPENED!

Up until TBOS, I did not have a most favorite Maiden song of all time. I had a favorite from every album, but I just couldn't seem to pick one of them as the very best. Well, after a LOT of thinking and really comparing all of my favorites, I have finally decided that The Red And The Black is truly my most favorite Maiden song ever. The reason is that it has a bit of everything that comes from other album favorites. First off, as I mentioned before, the opening vocal part is tied with Aces High as my most favorite of all time. Then, every vocal part has a harmonic guitar that goes right along with the singing. It also has some woah oh's in there and then ends with a beautiful melodic instrumental part. Like I said, my favorites from other album have some of those elements, but none of them have all of what I mentioned. I actually consider TRATB and Empire Of The Clouds to be the 2 very best songs Maiden have ever recorded, but I like TRATB just a little better. To think that it took all this time and many Maiden albums to get to this point. It's pretty amazing!
 
Why does Niko's snare sound so bad?I kind of enjoy major parts of the album still..........but why does the snare have to be so out of place in the whole mix?
(bit out of place this post....but still........)
 
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I think Shirley mentioned it in the DoD making of thing that he apparently doesn't work out a drum "sound" as such. He says he just mics up the drums and if they're tuned properly then they sound good.

Of course, that's completely absurd thinking since that's definitely not how it works but it does neatly explain why Maiden's drum sound has been consistently terrible on albums after BNW. But then again, that's modern Maiden production for you. Things don't have to sound good if they have that unquantifiable live feel or whatever they call it.
 
Ruflux said:
I think Shirley mentioned it in the DoD making of thing that he apparently doesn't work out a drum "sound" as such. He says he just mics up the drums and if they're tuned properly then they sound good.

Of course, that's completely absurd thinking since that's definitely not how it works but it does neatly explain why Maiden's drum sound has been consistently terrible on albums after BNW. But then again, that's modern Maiden production for you. Things don't have to sound good if they have that unquantifiable live feel or whatever they call it.
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Well the fact that he isn't using samples, or process the drum sounds in any extreme way, doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't do anything about the source itself. :) I'm pretty sure the studios they work in and Nicko himself has more than a few different drums to choose from when recording to get a desirable sound.
 
But see, the problem is they don't take those steps. From what we've seen of studio footage, Nicko shows up with his usual touring kit and they mic the stuff up and seemingly don't really pay much attention to how it sounds. I'm saying that's not how it should go.

You have to take time to get it right, get the microphones and their placement right and yes, even play with EQ and/or effects to get definition in the drum sound without making it sound too sampled. Otherwise you end up with muddy-sounding drums that don't really have that punch people desire in their mixes. Instead they sort of ring hollowly in a room that doesn't really provide any natural reverb, or then its reverb has been dampened artificially.

And I'd even go as far as say that the lack of a punchy, defined drum sound is probably the biggest contributor to the muddiness present in Maiden mixes these days. Everything just seems to blend together, nothing stands out and details are lost.
 
Ruflux said:
But see, the problem is they don't take those steps. From what we've seen of studio footage, Nicko shows up with his usual touring kit and they mic the stuff up and seemingly don't really pay much attention to how it sounds. I'm saying that's not how it should go.

You have to take time to get it right, get the microphones and their placement right and yes, even play with EQ and/or effects to get definition in the drum sound without making it sound too sampled. Otherwise you end up with muddy-sounding drums that don't really have that punch people desire in their mixes. Instead they sort of ring hollowly in a room that doesn't really provide any natural reverb, or then its reverb has been dampened artificially.

And I'd even go as far as say that the lack of a punchy, defined drum sound is probably the biggest contributor to the muddiness present in Maiden mixes these days. Everything just seems to blend together, nothing stands out and details are lost.
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Agreed 100%
 
This was a good record - and has aged over time better than The Final Frontier (though I still like half of a it quite a bit!) but the thing that I'm getting most from revisiting it is that Bruce and Janick are totally still composing at the height of their powers (at least their post-reunion powers) whereas I'm not sure about everyone else.
 
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