The Red And The Black

How good is The Red and the Black on a scale of 1-10?

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    22
This song is one of the album's weakest for me. The first half of the song suffers from too much repetition, particularly with the "woah oh" sections, and the chorus is too drawn out for it's own good. There are lots of nice parts during the lengthy instrumental section, but the problem here, is the parts whilst good on their own, don't really fit well together, and sounds like a lot of random ideas forced together for their own sake. The repetition of the first section, and the random nature of the 2nd half of the song combine to make this song one of the more forgettable Maiden epics, and possibly the weakest epic ever penned by 'Arry. Disappointing.
 
Sara said:
This song is one of the album's weakest for me. The first half of the song suffers from too much repetition, particularly with the "woah oh" sections, and the chorus is too drawn out for it's own good. There are lots of nice parts during the lengthy instrumental section, but the problem here, is the parts whilst good on their own, don't really fit well together, and sounds like a lot of random ideas forced together for their own sake. The repetition of the first section, and the random nature of the 2nd half of the song combine to make this song one of the more forgettable Maiden epics, and possibly the weakest epic ever penned by 'Arry. Disappointing.
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Yes, I have very mixed feelings about this song. I'm going to leave it and listen to it again on official release date, but my initial reaction was to think I was missing the point somewhere.
 
Exactly my thoughts... For me it seems like Rime, DOD and FOTD mixed together just to make an Iron Maiden super-song. It doesn't click for me. I'll leave it and have another listen in a week.
 
Brigantium said:
Yes, I have very mixed feelings about this song. I'm going to leave it and listen to it again on official release date, but my initial reaction was to think I was missing the point somewhere.
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I'm glad to see I'm not the only one here who was left underwhelmed by this song. I thought I was going to have to put my flame suit on. lol I certainly will listen to it again, but I'd be surprised if my initial reaction changes much.
 
I'll give it more chances. There were parts I liked, but I wasn't left with a great initial impression of it as a whole package. I did get this with some of the TFF songs too, but grew to like them over time. The chorus and whoah-oh parts sound unexpectedly cheery against the backdrop of the rest of the song. That's something that can really put me off a song, unless there turns out to be a good reason for it. Getting the lyrics could make that difference.
 
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Lempface said:
Bruce really shines in the first few verses of this song. Great melody and that's gotta be hard to sing.
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I don't really like this song, not my cup of tea but still it's great. To by honest, this album overall is hard to sing from what I hear.
 
I was underwhelmed at first but a few listens later, it is becoming one of my favourites on the album! Amazing Bruce vocals in the initial part! Great riffs, melodies. Love the first Adrian solo!

Still not the best Harris song but pretty good. If it had the responsibility of being the song of the album then it would have failed for me, but as it stands, we have another song for that role and this one plays its part perfectly! Another great musical creation by Steve Harris.
 
I'm actually counting the middle section along with EOTC's middle as new instrumentals from Maiden. I know it sounds strange, but it's the closest we're going to get since we haven't gotten one from them in such a long time.
 
Empire I can envision as separate sections more easily. But Red & Black feels more like one unit to me, harder to divide up. Lots of parts but they all flow together.
 
Ya, Empire is definitely a "sectional" song. I'll wait on this one, but I'd like to do something different and have a poll for the best instrumental and include those parts of TRATB and EOTC and ask other members here to look at those as instrumentals and see how they would compare them to Transylvania, The Ides Of March, Genghis Khan, and Losfer Words. I've got a feeling that one of the older ones would win. Probably Transylvania.
 
It's amazing how divisive this song seems to be. I really wasn't expecting that. For me, this song is just straight up Maideny goodness :)
 
Brave New Pilgrim said:
It's amazing how divisive this song seems to be. I really wasn't expecting that. For me, this song is just straight up Maideny goodness :)
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I'm not surprised at all; the thing is that this song has a ton of great ideas. There's a lot of great riffs in the song. The source of the division is how Steve executed the song as a whole. To some, it's sheer perfection. To others, such as myself, it feels rushed and very unsorted. I think the idea of having a more spontaneous and improvisational songwriting approach to this album worked perfectly for the band... save for this particular song. I think Steve probably needs to take more time in working out the various elements of his songs.
 
Lempface said:
Bruce really shines in the first few verses of this song. Great melody and that's gotta be hard to sing.
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The first two verses are the high point of the song for me. Bruce's vocals, and the lead guitar line of that section are awesome. I think this song would have worked much better as a shorter song, with all the needless excess stripped away. It's as if Steve made it an epic length song, simply because he could. It feels very forced, not natural.
 
I think the flow of the song is great. It's atypical in many ways and I enjoy that it is different but still works brilliantly.
 
Lempface said:
I think the flow of the song is great. It's atypical in many ways and I enjoy that it is different but still works brilliantly.
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I don't mind atypical songwriting. In fact, atypical song structures are very common in prog rock/metal. TRatB could have been a superb prog metal song, I think, had Steve taken more time to work out the kinks. It just feels like he came up with a very basic first draft of that potential song structure, where the song transitions just happen out of nowhere and feel random, rather than surprising and engaging.

It comes off like an incomplete homework assignment that could have been something incredible.
 
I see your points, but at the same time, to me, it does feel like all those things you are wishing it to be. I've already learned the guitar to this one sans the solos and it just gets better and more goosebump enducing with each listen.

Certainly the highlight of the album for me. It's just great the rest of the songs are all 9s or 10s as well. What a record!
 
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