The Edge of Darkness

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

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    8
Probably my favourite song from Blaze era. Slightly better than Sign of the Cross imo. Amazing, amazing, just amazing. Every part of it. Blaze sounds really powerfull and emotional here. And the lyrics are great as well. Really love the part:
"Here I am the knife in my hand
And now I understand why the genius must die"
Poor Colonel Kurtz.
 
One of the highlights of The X Factor for me. Great build-up at the start, powerful vocals, brilliant atmosphere, wonderful guitar melody, excellent solo. Main complaint - it seems to end too soon. More please!
9/10
 
I saw a bump in this thread and immediately felt like listening to the whole TXF... ;) Here I am the knife in my hand and now I understand why the genius must die - I love that moment and the preceding melodic passage. Blaze messed it up in this live recording a little bit, though. :bigsmile:
 
I meant only the line that I quoted. He changed the pitch weirdly and sounded... um... 'whiny' for lack of a better word. :P Otherwise, yeah, he did very well.
 
This one starts interestingly enough with the ominous intro. It starts to fall apart pretty quickly once the heavy part kicks in. The first heavy verse is just plodding to me. Once it picks up the tempo a bit it gets better. Great guitar melody there. The part starting with "I know captain that you've done this work before" verse is probably my favorite part of the song. The lyrics are incredibly awkward though. Relies way too heavily on original dialog from the movie and blandly retelling the plot.

Instrumental section is meh until the very end with the final guitar melody. Great buildup with the "genius must die" bit.

I actually like this a lot more than I remember. It's uneven, but there's some good parts sprinkled throughout. I like that it stays unpredictable. It definitely had potential to be even greater than it was.

6
 
One of the best on the album. Another killer intro but this time it develops into a much more interesting song with some real power in the rhythm section.

I love Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness too so the lyrics really hit the mark with me.

My complaint, like much of the album is that it all gets a bit repetitive. There's deep, heavy riffs that are repeated over and over and it discourages repeated listens. It's crying out for one more change in direction or tempo that never comes.

7
 
This is a song that took me a long, long time to really get used to. When I first heard X Factor it was one of the two songs that really made no impression.

Then I watched Apocalypse Now and came back and listened to this song. Every time I hear it, it brings me back to my experience with that movie, a movie that fucked my mind up pretty good for a solid day. I think I have some form of recurring trauma and it brings it back in an awesome fashion.

10/10. Now I understand why the genius must die.
 
5/10 Blazing torches nearing their half-life.

The Edge of Darkness features another “dramatic” intro. The lyrics are inspired by Apocalypse Now. The beginning tests the patience once more, but it’s a decent song once it gets going. Shades of Trü-Maiden shine through during the rocking bridge and solo section. Blaze sounds solid here, especially in his upper register, although another terrible lyric nearly ruins everything. Really, Steve? “Room service”? Also gets a point for being the only song to namedrop PBR - wait, what? Patrol boat? Nah, Blaze is definitely singing about mediocre hipster beer.
 
One of the best songs from the Blaze era. The intro sets the mood for the whole song, then the galloping part is really powerful, great solos as well, specially the second one and that melody just before "Here I am the knife in my hand", just great as well. All in all, a great song...shame it was only played live during the X Factour.
9/10
 
It's an alright song, Blaze isn't that great on it though. Still, I have a thing for weird-ass Maiden lyrics, and 'room service' is definitely up there, so it gets a 7/10 all told.
 
One of the best songs from the album! Sounds like classic Maiden to me, more like the band's older material than what they were experimenting with by that time. Not that good lyricwise, but the instrumental more than makes up for that, so it still gets a solid 9 from me.
 
Another nice, moody instrumental intro...then Blaze comes in with his sleepy, inconsistent, off-key delivery again (sigh).

When the verse perks up and later moves into the pre-chorus he sounds better, but he's saddled with some terrible lyrics and phrasing again ("they brought it up just like room service, cos everyone gets what they want", "ex-CUUUSED", "like a god, an IN-sane luna-TIC", "with EX-treme preju-DIIIIIICE"). His delivery of "prejudice" is actually one of his worst moments on the album, IMO.

The first solo is a sloppy mess, followed by an OK second one. The vocals on the bridge are terrible, but maybe Blaze was going for the dinner theater half-singing, half-speaking thing.

Surprisingly, the final verse comes across strongly, both in lyrics and performance. The intro reprise is OK and fits the song, though Blaze starts sounding sleepy again at the end.

There's a really good song hiding in here somewhere, but the version on the album is not it. There are enough stronger parts to manage a 6/10.
 
If you like Apocalypse Now you can not dislike this song. Also one of Blaze's best vocal performances. 9
 
A song that I once counted as the album's weakest, but now consider one of the album's best. The sound of helicopter blades opens the song and brings you right into the heart of the Vietnam War, with a great bass intro starting off the actual song and a dark, haunting performance from Blaze coming in next. It keeps it up when it gets heavier before changing things up a bit. The lyrics here are taking nearly word-for-word from Apocalypse Now, but they work surprisingly well and help build on the images already presented here. A great solo section leads to an emotional performance from Blaze ("And now I understand why the genius must die!") before things wind down and end as it all started. Like LC, watching the actual movie helped me appreciate this song a lot more, and it captures a lot of the feel quite well. I only wish this could be longer, but what we have is still perfect. 10
 
One of my all-time favorite Maiden songs. Blaze is really good here. The verse that starts with ”Every minute I get weaker...” sounds amazing, there’s some much power in the delivery.

Bonus points for the really unusual short harmony part in the middle of the great solo(s).

Solid 10.
 
Good but too long intro. Great riff/rhythm, drumming and verses. Awesome twin-lead guitar harmonies (the verse after the first twin-lead harmony is great). Both solos fits right. The second twin-lead guitar harmony after the solos is top-notch. The outro is effective. Very good song. 8/10
 
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