"The Book of Souls" - Official pre-release thread (CONTAINS ALBUM SPOILERS)

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Shadow said:
If your complaint about long songs is slow, drawn-out, atmospheric passages, Pink Floyd strikes me as a strange choice of a band to praise.
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Well, pink floyd did all that slow-intro thing in style and class. Maiden is just repeating the same melody and chords over and over again....just adding length to the songs.IMO.
 
Hey everyone! Man, it's been ages since I last posted in this forum!

Okay, The Book of Souls, huh? I like the album cover a lot; it's very much a nod back to the debut album in 1980 and evokes a similar mood to the covers of both The X Factor and Bruce's The Chemical Wedding. Hopefully that means we're in for a darker, heavier sounding album. I'm thinking that consistency shouldn't be too much of a problem here, especially considering how this album's credits are notably more diverse than the band has been in quite some time.

Personally speaking, I'm most excited for the two Bruce songs that open and close the album. Aside from being the best lyricist in the band by a country mile, I also think he's right there alongside Adrian as being one of the most musically interesting songwriters in the band.

"If Eternity Should Fail" makes me think we might be getting a song that shares some lyrical themes with "Starblind," a la atheism, agnosticism or simply anti-established religion. As for "Empire of the Clouds," I'm really not sure what it will be about. It wouldn't too surprising if Bruce based the song off of the airplane book, but I feel like that might not be a topic that would really work for a song that's eighteen minutes long. This is purely speculation on my part, but I think there's a possibility that the song might be something a bit more ethereal from a lyrical standpoint and act as a juxtaposition for the topics that Bruce will explore in the first song.

I'm also wondering which classic 70's progressive rock band(s) Bruce has been listening to lately, because I think it's a safe bet that this song is going to be Maiden's attempt at the "side-long epic" prog trope. I know Steve is a big Genesis fan and that Bruce loves Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, but does anyone have any knowledge of prog bands that Bruce enjoys listening to?
 
Jethro Tull are probably his old prog "heroes". Steve has also been into them.

Perhaps Opeth in later years. Who knows. I remember Bruce invited them in his radio show.
 
Earendil Ancient Mariner said:
It's inconceivable that some people are actually disappointed and whiny about an album they haven't listened to yet... I was astonished and excited about the length, about the fact that Bruce alone wrote an 18 minute song and pleased that it will be a double album, that makes up for the 5 year wait... I will reserve my critiques for when I've already listened to the album, which I'm sure will be awesome...
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It is the unfortunate nature of the internet age. We have "so long" to wait for this and nothing but time to overanalyze and freak out about things we haven't even heard. Just look, we've spent 12 pages talking about a press release! I enjoy speculation, but harping on and on about something I haven't heart yet is just silly.


LooseCannon said:
So, I'm starting to think the cover is an intended contrast to the very first Iron Maiden cover, showing the changes in Eddie as representative as changes of the band. Marked up, bald, lobotomized, older (because this Eddie appears greatly aged) but still the same essential thing.
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This was exactly my first thought. I really like the comparison and the contrast of the art when put in perspective.

Chained Prometheus said:
Personally speaking, I'm most excited for the two Bruce songs that open and close the album. Aside from being the best lyricist in the band by a country mile, I also think he's right there alongside Adrian as being one of the most musically interesting songwriters in the band.
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Indeed! Although sometimes Bruce's lyric writing can be far too obscure and confusing simply for the sake of being obscure and confusing.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
It is the unfortunate nature of the internet age. We have "so long" to wait for this and nothing but time to overanalyze and freak out about things we haven't even heard. Just look, we've spent 12 pages talking about a press release! I enjoy speculation, but harping on and on about something I haven't heart yet is just silly.
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I know you're here for a while, but still: Welcome to the forum.

It's been 5 long years and some out here are very passionate about this. And don't forget that new members join and older members are returning to share this moment together, or even stay longer.

If anyone is really bothered about that, no problem, but this very normal (if you ask me, at least).

EDIT:
Right now: 12 members online.
 
Forostar said:
Jethro Tull are probably his old prog "heroes". Steve has also been into them.

Perhaps Opeth in later years. Who knows. I remember Bruce invited them in his radio show.
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Hmm... That's interesting! I can hear a bit of Tull influence on The Chemical Wedding, particularly on "Jerusalem," so I'm not too surprised to hear that Bruce is a fan of them. While I have no evidence to go by here, I wouldn't surprised if Bruce is also a fan of Gabriel-era Genesis, as I feel he's sort of the spiritual successor to what Gabriel was doing back in the day. They both really dig deep into channeling out their songs visually as narrators.

MrKnickerbocker said:
Indeed! Although sometimes Bruce's lyric writing can be far too obscure and confusing simply for the sake of being obscure and confusing.
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It can definitely be obscure, but I like it personally. He's just got an incredible way with words.
 
Forostar said:
I know you're here for a while, but still: Welcome to the forum.

It's been 5 long years and some out here are very passionate about this. And don't forget that new members join and older members are returning to share this moment together, or even stay longer.

If anyone is really bothered about that, no problem, but this very normal (if you ask me, at least).

EDIT:
Right now: 12 members online.
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I'm not "bothered by it", I simply find it silly to get angry about a theoretical sound. I said I enjoy speculation: I'll sit here all day and talk about whether we think that 18 minute song will be spacey or riff-heavy or full of wild lyrical allusions referencing atheism, string theory, and weather patterns...but to get mad about something just because it is 18 minutes just feels like a waste of time.

I'm glad so many people have so many things to say, and the more the merrier! But if we're gonna get angry about nothing, I'd rather sit back and press refresh until a real conversation comes along.
 
Sorry, missed the anger part I think. But there was some disappointment (or prejudice?) indeed. I do not share their negative feeling about long songs. Definitely not in advance.

But other stuff happened in these 12 pages.
 
BTW, LooseCannon, do you think there's a chance that "If Eternity Should Fail" might share some lyrical themes with "Starblind?" You were the one who wrote that baller essay on "Starblind" back when The Final Frontier came out, right?
 
Chained Prometheus said:
You were the one who wrote that baller essay on "Starblind" back when The Final Frontier came out, right?
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Yes, I did.

Chained Prometheus said:
BTW, LooseCannon, do you think there's a chance that "If Eternity Should Fail" might share some lyrical themes with "Starblind?"
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With the four words that I have on it, sure, why not? It's also done by Bruce, who has questioned these sorts of things in the past. That being said, we have exactly four words to go on. The more I have listened to Starblind, the more I have come to the conclusion that it is a screed against organized religion, not necessarily a pro-atheist feeling, in a similar vein to "Heaven and Hell" - but this one might go even further. Or it could have nothing to do with anything. Who knows.
 
Chained Prometheus said:
As for "Empire of the Clouds," I'm really not sure what it will be about.
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Maybe Bruce himself hinted it, not long ago, in his interview about HAV:

"It's kind of like Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, except our sea happens to be the air. In fact, you can think of the Hybrid Air Vehicle as being a flying submarine. If that's too much for you, we're buoyant, and we're just buoyant in a different medium than the sea."
 
LooseCannon said:
Yes, I did.
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Thought so! :ok: It's great stuff and really helped me better appreciate that song. Thanks for that, even if it's five years late. :edmetal:

With the four words that I have on it, sure, why not? It's also done by Bruce, who has questioned these sorts of things in the past. That being said, we have exactly four words to go on. The more I have listened to Starblind, the more I have come to the conclusion that it is a screed against organized religion, not necessarily a pro-atheist feeling, in a similar vein to "Heaven and Hell" - but this one might go even further. Or it could have nothing to do with anything. Who knows.
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Yeah, normally I wouldn't even bother to try guessing what a song would be about without actually hearing it. Especially with just the title and the songwriter to go by. However, as you've already pointed out, it's a song solely written by Bruce and I do think the title seems to have that sort of edge to it. Could be anything though, so we'll have to wait and see.

mikoza said:
Maybe Bruce himself hinted it, not long ago, in his interview about HAV:

"It's kind of like Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, except our sea happens to be the air. In fact, you can think of the Hybrid Air Vehicle as being a flying submarine. If that's too much for you, we're buoyant, and we're just buoyant in a different medium than the sea."
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That's definitely a possibility. I just have a feeling that the song being about air-travel might be a bit too easy a guess, even though this is Bruce that we're talking about here.
 
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