Underrated?

S

Sheriff_of_Huddersfield

Nomad
I pose this question because I’m ambivalent myself about Iron Maiden’s sophomore release. Do I like it? Sometimes, yes, very much. However, aside from four tracks, I find much of the album forgettable until I listen again and think “yeah, it’s a good listen, then.”

The Ides of March: excellent driving intro that drops into the “tough” sounding bass intro to Wrathchild. The title track Killers has its driving, metallic flanger pedal sound that anyone who’s taken nitrous oxide at the dentist’s office might recognize as the sound objects striking make when under that influence.

Killers as an album, while not Maiden at its technical peak, was a nice follow up to their eponymous debut.

Why does Killers rank lower for most than Iron Maiden? They seem similar enough tonally and thematically.
 
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Killers is fine, but if the best you can say about a Maiden album is ‘fine’, then there’s a problem. It doesn’t have the raw, hungry energy of the debut, nor the interesting songwriting of future releases, and feels very much cobbled together of ‘cuts that didn’t make the first record’. Also “Drifter” still sucks, worst Maiden song.

“Murders in the Rue Morgue” is fucking awesome though.
 
Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
Why does Killers rank lower for most than Iron Maiden? They seem similar enough tonally and thematically.
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Killers might be strangest album from Iron Maiden for me. Not sonically, but its reception and how it's viewed by both Iron Maiden and heavy metal fans in general. From my understanding, this was Iron Maiden's first breakthrough into the American market. Obviously Number of the Beast fully dominated in global airplay but I have seen many (older) American Iron Maiden fans saying that Killers was their first introduction into Maiden and heavy metal as a whole.

For me, and a lot of diehard "newer" Iron Maiden fans, I do find it slightly underwhelming. But a slightly underwhelming Iron Maiden album is still good enough to crack my top 100 all time. When you spend so much time with a band, you know every album to an obsessive degree. If I could wipe my mind of everything Iron Maiden and relisten to this album, I'm sure it would blow me away.
 
It has DiAnno, no Nicko, no epic nor epic feeling songs at least or even many catchy songs (the debut has at least Phantom, Transylvania and Running Free; Killers' only weighty song is Killers and almost only catchy song is Purgatory and Twilight Zone which wasn't even originally on the album), the production sounds murky (to me), the songs sound really similar to one another and in general, this feels like your average NWOBHM album with some more guitar harmonies, so it's not completely forgettable. Like, most of it sounds like filler for some reason, like songs that weren't good enough to get on the debut.

Within Maiden discography, this has all the greyness and mid-everything of No Prayer, but that one at least has its excellent title track.
 
It's my least favorite Maiden album. The production is a step up from the debut, the cover artwork is iconic and there are a couple of cool tracks on there. It's simply not what I'm looking for when I want to listen to Maiden.

Also, we joke around that it is more Fillers than Killers, but technically that is correct, considering Steve chose what he deemed to be the best songs of Maidens first half decade for the debut and the rest made it on Killers instead.
Certainly doesn't help that many songs are borderline unfinished and consist over the same verse repeated thrice (Another Life being an example).
 
1."The Ides of March" (instrumental)
2."Wrathchild"
3."Murders in the Rue Morgue"
4."Another Life"
5."Genghis Khan" (instrumental)
6."Innocent Exile"

7."Killers"
8."Prodigal Son"
9."Purgatory"
10."Drifter"

The songs I've bolded, I consider to be very good to great. Another five, to me, feel somewhat faceless. Not long ago, I re-listened to the whole album. It feels incredibly youthful and energetic. And in the context of listening to the entire album, all the songs flow well—sometimes even great. You can really feel that youthfulness and relentlessness.

But once some time passes and things fade a bit from memory, only the bolded songs still stand out—at least for me. That’s not to say the other five tracks are filler, but to me, they lack a certain identity or something along those lines. They just don’t stand out.

That said, like I mentioned, when I play the album from start to finish, it flows like a fast, mountainous river.

Also, I rate the instrumental Genghis Khan very highly. I really enjoy its melodies. I even hear a kind of foreshadowing of Hallowed Be Thy Name in that instrumental.

Edit: Also, on several songs, the lyrics feel seriously underdeveloped and just keep repeating over and over.
Edit2: Huh, I re-listened to Purgatory, and yeah—I'm putting this one in the bolded category :)
Edit3: Huh, I re-listened to Prodigal Son, and yeah—I'm putting this one in the bolded category. You get the idea of how all this works. :D
 
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