Virtual XI
Blaze’s second album with Maiden was also my introduction to his time in the band. I knew The Clansman from Rock in Rio but otherwise I had mostly just heard that this period of the band wasn’t very good, until I started visiting forums like this one where both albums were widely appreciated by the fans and were even some members’ favorites. So I found Virtual XI in a used CD shop and, maybe it was the thirst for new Maiden, but I found myself really getting into it. For a long time I even preferred it to The X Factor, which took me a long time to get into. I’ve grown lukewarm to the album since then, and I tend to agree with most of the common criticisms, but I still have a soft spot for it.
If The X Factor was the beginning of modern Maiden, Virtual XI establishes a lot of the traits that would continue throughout the rest of the band’s career. It’s hard for me not to lump this with the reunion albums, especially when you consider that Brave New World used a lot of leftover material. You also see Harris continuing to have a tight grip on the process, with this album being the first since Killers where Harris has a writing credit on every song. There are echoes on this album in the writing credits of Senjutsu (Steve Harris has four solo compositions on both). The Red and the Black feels like a spiritual successor to some of the work on here.
Like every other album from the 90s, there’s some good and some bad. Harris’ lyrics really do drag a lot of these songs down. A lot of them just don’t make sense. It’s not like Harris hadn’t written word jumbles before or doesn’t continue to do so today, but there are many lyrical moments that read like an old man getting lost in a ramble. The repetitive choruses do seem to take special prominence on this album, although personally the only songs where it really bugs me is Don’t Look To the Eyes of the Stranger. Other times it ranges from tolerable to mildly annoying. Fortunately we have a few lyrical contributions from Blaze which flow much more naturally and just seem more thought out in general.
The other thing really weighing this album down is production. The guitars never sounded good in the 90s, but sound especially dead here. I don’t mind a dry sound, but there’s just no grit or character to the guitars here. There’s also just a lot of weird arrangement choices, like the awkward distorted power chords at the end of Como Estais Amigos. The drum problems on this album are well documented; Nicko sounds like a machine and his drums are mixed extremely low. I genuinely think that if this album had Brave New World’s production, no other changes, it wouldn’t be quite as maligned. There are many moments, such as going into the chorus of Educated Fool or when the full band comes in during The Clansman, where the dynamic stays exactly the same. No movement in the sound or energy. The sorts of traits people look for when listening to the music. I don’t think the music here is terrible, but the band sounds bored when performing it. It’s good that they stopped making albums this way.
Those are my major gripes. As for the positives, this album is extremely melodic. I love the riffing, especially in The Clansman and the two Murray penned songs. It’s very Somewhere In Time-esque in that these songs really get going when it’s centered around the instrumental work. In fact, the general vibe and energy of this album is the closest they’ve gotten to their classic era since the 80s. It’s just missing the polish and tightness of those original albums. The guitar playing is also fantastic, despite the bad tones. Some of my favorite Janick solos are on this album. Great stuff.
None of that is to say I dislike Blaze on this album. I listened with an open mind and I can definitely hear where a lot of folks are coming from saying that he sounds better on this album than The X Factor. There are definitely less awkward belting moments. I can concede that he does sound better on Virtual. Still I think there are a lot of passages that just weren’t really written to complement his voice. I also find myself missing Bruce’s air raid more on this album than on the previous one. On the other hand, hearing Bruce do Futureal also just makes me think that some of these songs are doomed from the start in the vocal department. But otherwise Blaze sounds pretty good and it sounds like he’s a bit more settled in the band (again, the production isn’t doing him any favors). He also contributes a lot of great material in the writing department (this is true for both albums).
For me, this album really gets going from the stretch between Lightning Strikes Twice and The Educated Fool. These are easily the four best songs and they are the songs that are least affected by the aforementioned problems. That The Clansman is still being played live in 2021 (theoretically) and fans are responding to it speaks to that song’s high quality. For me it is quite possibly the best song Maiden released in that decade. Lightning Strikes Twice and When Two Worlds Collide show that both Murray and Blaze can be forces to be reckoned with when they write. These songs also show that Maiden still has a lot of progress to make and they serve as tasty previews for what’s to come. They’re not perfect, but they’ve got me excited for what’s to come. Well, The Clansman is pretty perfect.
There’s a pretty clear inflection point on this album. Maiden needed to go back to a real studio with a real producer. Blaze was giving his best, but they needed someone with Dickinson’s range (both literal range and his range as a performer), if not Dickinson himself. You hear the potential on this album, but you also hear a lot of the problems coming to a head. Maiden still had a lot to offer, clearly, but they were not going to get where they needed to be under the present circumstances. I’m glad the necessary changes were made. A lot of that is to Steve Harris’ credit. He has a reputation around here as being a crotchety dictator who’s set in his ways, but it must’ve taken a lot of pride swallowing and mistake admitting to make those necessary changes. There’s an alternate universe where he George Lucases Iron Maiden instead and makes albums in his barn until the band becomes a sad shell of what it once was. Virtual XI is the crossroads between those two paths. Anyone getting Angel and the Gambler vibes?
Blaze frequently says that his third album with Maiden would’ve been the one that validated that lineup. On one hand, I feel for Blaze. It’s true that he never got to make that great classic album with Maiden and to this day he’s still not accepted by a large segment of the fan base. I can also see the logic behind what he’s saying: Silicon Messiah and Brave New World are both very highly regarded among fans. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that both albums are typically preferred to both Blaze Maiden albums. It stands to reason that a third Maiden album with Blaze would’ve been some sort of hybrid between the two.
Unfortunately I don’t think the reality quite works that way. Sure Blaze would’ve sounded great on Blood Brothers and Dream of Mirrors, but the album probably wouldn’t have been produced by Kevin Shirley. It still would’ve been recorded piecemeal in Steve’s barn. Maybe Maiden would’ve made Stare at the Sun or Ghost In the Machine, but those songs wouldn’t have been as relentlessly heavy or written in the lower keys that better fit Blaze’s voice. Ironically, Maiden and Blaze were better off without each other and we got two fantastic albums out of the immediate split.
The Chemical Wedding
Virtual XI was still fresh when Bruce Dickinson released his follow up to Accident of Birth. While certainly not intentional, it’s hard not to see the quick release as a challenge to Maiden. But it doesn’t matter. AOB had a lot of Maidenish qualities, but this album is nothing like Maiden. It’s dark, extremely heavy, technical, riff driven in a way that Maiden is not. Where Accident of Birth was a demonstration that Bruce could still flourish in a Metal band, The Chemical Wedding showed that he could also take his genre to new heights.
You really can’t overstate how good this album is. Everything here works: the concept, the production, the performances, the songs. It’s hard to choose a favorite between this and Accident of Birth, but I can’t resist a good concept album. The Chemical Wedding also has a great flow, where each song has its own vibe but still works in contributing to the whole experience.
Bruce is one of my favorite lyricists and most of the positives I associate with him are on this particular album. He had many strokes of genius during his first stint in Maiden, but I’m not sure if he ever had the proper chance to fully explore some of the occultish themes he was getting into with songs like Revelations and Moonchild. The Chemical Wedding gave him a chance to do just that and he really delivers. The best thing about his lyrics on this album is despite all the esoteric references and narrow focus, you still feel included as an audience member. The lyrics don’t seem ungraspable. The occult themes and references to 18th century Alchemists are used to present relatable topics or tell engaging stories.
Madrid 1998
Having a hard time finding this on YouTube, if anyone would like a copy PM me. Soundboard.
Again, there is a wealth of material from this tour (including Blaze’s final show with the band!). I went with Madrid for no other reason than it was already on my cloud drive to listen to in the car. While I’m not super well versed in Blaze era bootlegs, I tend to enjoy these shows more than the Fear of the Dark era and even a lot of the Seventh Son and No Prayer era shows. If the band sounded tired in the studio, they were super energized on the tour. Honestly I think Bruce leaving ended up being a positive for their live performances, which carried over to the quality of performances when Bruce and Adrian returned. They’re tight and totally on fire. I know both of these tours were cut short because Blaze wasn’t able to handle the rigorous touring schedule, but I’ve never really checked out stuff from the North American tours where he supposedly started to have problems. On the bootlegs I’m familiar with, primarily Europe and South America, he sounds great. I’m sure this wasn’t the story throughout the tour, but I think sometimes these tours have worse reputations than they deserve. The venues may have gotten smaller, but Maiden didn’t become a worse live band because of it.
Just like on the X Factor, the Virtual XI material is so much better live. The performances here almost validate the repetitive nature of The Angel and the Gambler. Years later myself and others were making this argument about The Red and the Black: Steve is writing these songs for the live stage with the expectation that the audience is going to sing along. And you do get a small handful of folks singing along to Angel. While it’s not suddenly a great song, I can see what Steve was going for here. There’s a lot of live energy here and he’s trying to expand those audience participation moments. Just like when they extend Running Free, except Steve (or someone) back then knew better than to turn Running Free into a 10 minute epic. Whatever, I think it’s fun. Not being hamstrung by the brick walled production also helps. When the band gets quiet, it actually sounds quiet, the buildup actually feels like a dynamic buildup. The onstage energy also just contributes to these songs feeling more alive. When Two Worlds Collide and The Clansman rock hard. It’s nice to hear the patented Maiden gallop in full force again.
The great thing about this tour is that they now had two albums with Blaze, so you get a healthy dose of X Factor material too. With that said, the setlist continues to be a head scratcher for me. You get a lot of Virtual XI, which is great, and a decent amount of X Factor, but they definitely could’ve fit in at least one or two more songs from that album instead of the Dickinson era material like Two Minutes and Evil That Men Do which just don’t sound very good with Blaze. It doesn’t seem like they varied their pre-Blaze selection any compared to X Factour. I said it before, but it seems crazy to me that they didn’t lean into the Di’Anno era more. Especially when you consider that Bruce’s last tour with Maiden and his first tour back in Maiden each had a few Di’Anno era deep cuts. It’s almost like they were setting up Blaze for failure.
With that said though, if we focus primarily on the Blaze era, this is a better performance from him than the previous boot. His voice sounds fuller, more control, and more in tune. At least as far as the live performance goes, I think he left on a relative high note. Still not to the Maiden standard, but he was getting there. This is a really good show and a nice glimpse at some of the lesser played songs from that era.
