Samantas5855
Ancient Mariner
I wasn't yet born when blaze was on maiden (born Sept. 2001) but Virtual XI was my first Iron Maiden CD. I don't remember who gave it to me but I remember listening to it in the car when I was like 8. I remember listening to Como Estais Amigos. I actually like every song in this album although I believe there are bad momeny in some of them, it still strikes me as bizzare that TAATG is 9 minutes while it was 6 originally. The mastering is awful as the album is clipped and compressed to death. I love futureal, its a perfect maiden opener, wish they still played it and Clansman is also a true maiden epic. It was four songs and if TAATG didn't drag it would've been LP length as all maiden albums should be (minus TXF cause its unique). Gorilla eddie fits the cover and Blaze nicely, I'm a big fan, the artwork was cut but thankfully this was fixed with the awful 2015 remasters. What I do not like is the whole football thing, also on the cover and the crap shovelware called Ed Hunter, they used crappy renders instead of Derek's art for the singles to promote it, yikes.
While VXI is important to me emotinally, I have to admit TXF is leagues better, after one horrible (NPFTD) and one okayish (FOTD) album, Iron Maiden made this masterpiece. With two new writers in the team (Blaze and Janick) one of them being the new frontman with a fresh and not yet tired voice (like raspy Bruce of the time) Maiden could finally do their reboot album. TXF was different, it wrecked all that maiden stood for, it was slow, big and emotionally heavy. It deals with topics discussed before like death, war, religion, depression, routine but in a new way, a darker one. The album starts with the Sign Of The Cross, odd choice using the epic song as the kickstarter but what an epic, Sign Of The Cross is a true masterpiece. I like all 14 songs really. Lately Ive been listening a lot to the X Factor, more than any other album, it sits on my top 3 right bellow SiT and SSOASS. I also like everything arround it, the cover while not made for an album cover has a weird beauty to it (the squashed Iron Maiden logo not so much) and the cover songs Doctor Doctor and My generation were done excellently. This was also the last maiden album were the mastering wasnt offensive, first without Birch. Ive watched and listened to tons of bootlegs from that era, Blaze was awesome in his songs. On the older songs he was very good some nights, some others not so much but this was tiring to him since maiden never dropped tuning. I also like virus from that era.
I feel like Maiden have been trying the mid tempo formula the later years, slow intro kicks later, big and repetitive and it makes their albums boring but this actually worked on the x factor.
Oh, every time I ready any of these albums ranked posts and TXF is on the last place I really eye roll
While VXI is important to me emotinally, I have to admit TXF is leagues better, after one horrible (NPFTD) and one okayish (FOTD) album, Iron Maiden made this masterpiece. With two new writers in the team (Blaze and Janick) one of them being the new frontman with a fresh and not yet tired voice (like raspy Bruce of the time) Maiden could finally do their reboot album. TXF was different, it wrecked all that maiden stood for, it was slow, big and emotionally heavy. It deals with topics discussed before like death, war, religion, depression, routine but in a new way, a darker one. The album starts with the Sign Of The Cross, odd choice using the epic song as the kickstarter but what an epic, Sign Of The Cross is a true masterpiece. I like all 14 songs really. Lately Ive been listening a lot to the X Factor, more than any other album, it sits on my top 3 right bellow SiT and SSOASS. I also like everything arround it, the cover while not made for an album cover has a weird beauty to it (the squashed Iron Maiden logo not so much) and the cover songs Doctor Doctor and My generation were done excellently. This was also the last maiden album were the mastering wasnt offensive, first without Birch. Ive watched and listened to tons of bootlegs from that era, Blaze was awesome in his songs. On the older songs he was very good some nights, some others not so much but this was tiring to him since maiden never dropped tuning. I also like virus from that era.
I feel like Maiden have been trying the mid tempo formula the later years, slow intro kicks later, big and repetitive and it makes their albums boring but this actually worked on the x factor.
Oh, every time I ready any of these albums ranked posts and TXF is on the last place I really eye roll
