Vaenyr
Ancient Mariner
Another one of my favorites. The helicopter intro is somewhat unnecessary and the song takes a bit of time to get going. Another long and quiet intro with acoustic and clean guitars, and the bass playing power chords. Not the greatest first impression, but the rest of the song makes up for it. The verse gets more interesting once the distorted guitars kick in. Not musically, but Blaze jumps an octave, giving the song the power it needed. After that one of my favorite lead sections! So great that Maiden self-plagiarized 25 years later on The Time Machine lol
The next set of verses features some gallops and constant call backs to the lead section. Some of the phrasing is a bit dodgy, but it's never too bad. Janick's solo is mostly noodling around, but Dave plays around with some harmonies, making it far more memorable than many of the previous solos.
We get another different lead section that is super catchy, before Blaze joins in with a vocal line based on the lead while we lose tempo and return to the first verse riff. Honestly, this part of the song feels a bit unnecessary, as does the reprise of the clean verse. There were some pretty creative choices here and there; this wasn't one of them. Nevertheless, this continued the trend that started from The Aftermath onwards of some pretty interesting and strong compositions. This is another 8.
The next set of verses features some gallops and constant call backs to the lead section. Some of the phrasing is a bit dodgy, but it's never too bad. Janick's solo is mostly noodling around, but Dave plays around with some harmonies, making it far more memorable than many of the previous solos.
We get another different lead section that is super catchy, before Blaze joins in with a vocal line based on the lead while we lose tempo and return to the first verse riff. Honestly, this part of the song feels a bit unnecessary, as does the reprise of the clean verse. There were some pretty creative choices here and there; this wasn't one of them. Nevertheless, this continued the trend that started from The Aftermath onwards of some pretty interesting and strong compositions. This is another 8.