A new Maiden album and some changes. I'll divide this one in two groups: albums that contain what I consider to be bad songs/ fillers, those who are devoid of bad stuff but feature one or two songs that while not being as good as the rest are still strong material.
Regarding the first group, albums with stinkers/ fillers:
The Number Of The Beast - Gangland: Same as it was. While not being utter crap (lit's even enjoyable) it's a bit confuse and forgettable. Of course Invaders' chorus is awful and the lower point of the entire album. But its two repetitions are less than 20 seconds long and IMO the remainder of the song is a 10 out of 10 in my book. So yeah... Gangland.
Piece Of Mind - Quest For Fire: The instrumental section is quite nice but the lyrics and vocal line ruin it. If they made an instrumental with some soloing action out of this one it would turn out really cool (the chorus has some resemblances with Transylvania). If QFF wasn't included in the album the other song I can think of is Sun And Steel not because it's a filler of any kind (TBH it's a really cool track) but because the remainder of the songs are so amazing it kinda pales a bit in comparison. Nevertheless way better than QFF.
No Prayer For The Dying - Hooks In You: Hard rock-ish second tier material. Easy, easy pick. There are some songs that lack some consistency here like The Assassin or are kind of strange bodies on the album like Holy Smoke but all of them have something to offer while Hooks in You is an utter disgrace.
Fear Of The Dark - Fear Is The Key: In a record I consider to be filled with garbage (From Here To Eternity, Wasting Love), weird tunes (The Apparition, Weekend Warrior, Chains Of Misery) and still can spawn an insipid filler in The Fugitive it would probably be hard to pick an absolute low point. But no. Fear Is The Key is by far the song I hoped Maiden would never wrote. That's how much disdain I have for it.
Virtual XI - The Angel And The Gambler: Maiden's eleventh record sure has some mediocre tunes (Don't Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger, When Two Worlds Collide) but that irritating keyboard a la The Who meets Van Halen's Jump and listening "Don't you think I'm a savior? Don't you think I could save you? Don't you think I could save your life?" dozens of times is what makes of TAATG the albums' worst track by any counts.
Brave New World - The Mercenary: Absolute filler. Is it horrendous? No, by any means. But it's damn boring. And while some other songs here wreck my nerves due to some dumb passages or structural chaos they still bring great stuff to the table. The title track's chorus is mundane and from that point on is an essay on repetition of previous great passages on uptempo but fact is up to the first chorus it's simply gorgeous stuff. Dream Of Mirrors has that horrible prologue and intro and also embarks on the uptempo repetition train but the verses, calm bridge and chorus are really good. So yeah... The Mercenary simply does nothing for me.
Dance Of Death - Age Of Innocence: Awful chorus, the soft parts on the bridge are really feeble and the lyrics are poor. New Frontier is also a bit of a filler: weak chorus and I'm really not buying Bruce's melody on the verses. But nonetheless it still has some energy in it unlike AOI.
The Book Of Souls - Shadows Of The Valley: Starting with one of the most blatant cases of self plagiarism ever and presenting us with Bruce's worst performance in the album this track still sounds boring as hell to me. The Man Of Sorrows is perhaps the song that comes a bit closer due to its completely out of context beginning but the remainder is enjoyable and by no means can be compared to SOTV that easily gets the worst of TBOS IMO.
Now albums without weak songs or fillers but with a couple of songs less good than the others:
Iron Maiden: Yeah... no bad songs here, Super solid with a huge stand out track in it (Phantom Of The Opera). I think it comes out to
Charlotte The Harlot,
Running Free or
Iron Maiden but while being really different between themselves I think each one of these songs have their charm and are truly well penned. I'll pick
Iron Maiden on overplaying alone once again.
Killers: Amazing and unique record full of energy but I believe
Another Life and
Drifter are the songs that feel a bit more made on the run. Still really good hard n' heavy stuff. This time I'd go with Drifter while still liking it a lot. P.S.: that was until
@Mega reminded me that
The Ides Of March is a song (duh!) and although I really like it as an intro to the whole album it loses a bit of value on its own.
Powerslave: This album presents us with 3 of the most perfect moments in music (Aces High, Powerslave and ROTAM) as well as 5 other amazing tunes. Hell, I think it comes down to
The Duelists or
Flash Of The Blade (two songs that would be stand outs on various Maiden albums). And once again I'll pick
Flash Of The Blade although it saddens me.
The X Factor: Another super cohesive ( and truly underrated) album featuring a masterpiece (SOTC) and several great songs. And while being great tunes the last two songs from Maiden's tenth studio effort are the ones I believe to be the least good here. And while
2 AM is much better constructed and really nails the ambiance it's intended to build,
The Unbeliever is somewhat hurt by those cringe worth harmonics and first vocal line. But the remainder of the song is absolutely amazing so this time I'll switch it to
2 AM.
A Matter Of Life And Death: IMO this remains to this very day the best post reunion Maiden release. And one of the reasons is the fact that, besides featuring a handful of tracks that I consider to be on par with Maiden's classics, it's absolutely devoid of a single filler. As I stated before the least amazing tracks here are
The Pilgrim (101 exciting well written Maiden) and
Out Of The Shadows(a glorious semi acoustic song that would shine in the vast majority of Maiden's releases). By these picks alone one can see how great of an album AMOLAD is. And I'll still go with
The Pilgrim although it is one hell of a track.
The Final Frontier: While not being a super album per se, The Final Frontier amazed me by not featuring a simple "mmmmm skip it" moment. Mother Of Mercy receives a lot of flack and besides the mundane lyrics that really puzzles me: excellent intro, strong pace, intense and passionate. Is it closer to the lower tier of songs on the album than the best ones? I concur so. However IMO the overpraised
Coming Home is on the same echelon (if not a bit lower). Yes it is a great song with an excellent pre chorus and a built to play live refrain but I think all the remainder of the tracks on TFF are better. All but one:
The Man Who Would Be King. But even this track features some truly amazing passages like its final part. And overall, is truly well built and enjoyable (although I'd make the initial part shorter). But nonetheless
The Man Who Would Be King remains as my least great from TFF.
Senjutsu: Ah! A freshly released album and to my pleasure once again not a single stinker or filler. That doesn't mean that some songs here and there could be better rounded but one thing's certain as far as I'm concerned: Senjutsu won't present you skipable or mediocre songs. That being said I believe the least achieved moments may be
The Time Machine and
Darkest Hour: two well put together songs that absolutely hit the target they're intended to strike but fall a bit short when compared with some others in my opinion. And although it's a great song I'll go with the gloomy anguish of
Darkest Hour which proves how much of a cohesive and astonishig album Senjutsu is.
WAIT! There are two albums missing. Yup you're right. These two I won't even bother say which song I'd pick since they're so good it's almost criminal. So let's see.
Somewhere In Time: In my last post I picked Deja Vu. And yes... besides being one heck of a song it's not my favorite track out of SIT. But excluding Caught Somewhere In Time, Wasted Years, Heaven Can Wait and Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner (four absolutely untouchable songs IMO) and perhaps Sea Of Madness which is nearly as perfect, I can't seriously point a worst or least good song here. So it's easier to point which ones aren't my picks for sure (those 4) and the rest while not being as mind blowing are equally amazing and untouchable. There are no worst of's or least good's here. It's SIT, period.
Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son: This album has the same "problem" than SIT but while not considering it as good overall, it's even more cohesive. I picked The Evil That Men Do in my last post. Man... The Evil That Men Do and "worst song" simply don't fit. Period. So I'll do the same I did with SIT. There are 4 tracks I consider to be absolutely untouchable in SSOASS: Moonchild, Infinite Dreams, Can I Play With Madness and The Prophecy. The remainder four are almost as perfect as these but I grade them a tid bit below. If you want to point a least good fom that group go ahead. I won't.