Iron Maiden - The Book Of Souls

[Nightbat]

Sounds like Martin Birch needs to drag his ass out of retirement

[Force]

Martin or any other producer that won't be told what to do by Harris or management, Shirley is a yes man just so he can have the Maiden gig, it's doing him no favours.

I don't know if a modern sound would suit Maiden but imagine what Andy Sneap could achieve for them.

[Grandturk]

Got it, listened to it & have put it aside til the disappointment has worn off

This is what I figured. I'm a huge maiden fan - hell I now have 3 maiden signature guitars. But I can't get into the new stuff. The last few albums are just sprawling long songs and the albums are overlong in general so you never get "into" any particular songs through repetition because there are so many songs. Artists should really focus on 8-9 great songs instead of 14-15 unedited mediocre songs

Anyway... I'be been disappointed recently with album purchases - High Country by The Sword was a complete flopping waste. Hopefully the new Clutch album kicks ass. High on Fires latest was pretty good as well.

[shramiac]

As long as it's better than Harris' British Lion solo effort.........

Agreed that Kev Shirley is a yes man, though his Dream Theater work was more than fine, just that Steve needs a kick up the backside with production. Always thought Roy Z would be good to get in and tighten up some of the song writing, as IM songs can waffle on a bit at times. His history with Bruce and Adrian would be an asset.

Nicko's toms.............. poo as usual!

[MartinBarre]

I really like the new album. Yeah, it would be better with some shorter, snappy songs like "Aces High" or "Moonchild" but...I still think it's a really great album.

[Snoogans]

Production is still ordinary, some good songs while others could've been but spoilt by needless extended repetition on boring noodly single note melodies played by all 3 guitars, the so-called 18min Bruce masterpiece is.....well, i can't put into words, maybe 'nonsense'? The biggest clanger is how badly it's all played, sloppy incoherent mush.

I'm glad that somebody else said it first! I was wondering if I was listening to the same album that everyone else is raving about. Even to my knackered ears, there's some pretty glaring bum notes in there, as well as a couple of "groan-out-loud" moments.

[Force]

I hadn't seen much negativity other than 'I'm just not feeling it' until I started ranting & it seems to have opened the floodgates.

I still like it, there's some great stuff on here but fuck my old boots, it's far from the masterpiece it's hailed as. The masses must be deaf, despite complaints from older headbangers, we've had alot of phenomenal albums in the last 15yrs, there's no way this album should be accepted as freely as it has been.

[Schadenfreude]

I loved the first 8 or so Maiden albums, but all the newer stuff (everything after Blaze Baily and we won`t talk about that) just doesnt cut it for me. They seemed to concentrate on writing long epic songs and I'm just not digging them. IMO the praise for Rime of the Ancient Mariner (and i LOVE that song) has a lot to answer for the length of later Maiden songs trying to replicate its success.

Not heard this latest offering but wasnt blown away by the single posted earlier on this thread and the video was shockingly bad.

Just my 2 cents for what its worth.

[Hellraiser6502]

IMO, only the first two Maiden albums are worthy of 'Classic' .....Dickinson is fine but never convinced me he was a worthy replacement for Di Anno. I guess I'm just OLD and got into Maiden after the first record....broke my heart that he left and BD came in with a completely different vibe. It never sat well with me.

[toejam]

I loved the first 8 or so Maiden albums, but all the newer stuff (everything after Blaze Baily and we won`t talk about that) just doesnt cut it for me. They seemed to concentrate on writing long epic songs and I'm just not digging them.

I thought X Factor was great, even with Blaze singing. Blaze sounded like a young David Lee Roth, even though I was never really a huge DLR fan, but it seemed to work on that album for me.

Virtual XI was shit. I thought Futureal was really the only decent song on there. It was like the choruses of most songs were sung over and over and over and over again, and it seemed like a drum machine was programmed (there were barely any drum fills) and Nicko just hit a lot of cymbals.

I did get Brave New World and loved it with Bruce and Adrian back, but haven't bought a Maiden album since that time.

[Schadenfreude]

Brave New World I looked forward to, even the cover art looked good and had that maiden feel about it. Wickerman wasnt amazing but kinda fitted with previous singles. On listening to the full cd it was back to epic long songs. Wish they`d try do some short punchy stuff and not make every track a 10 part opera

[toejam]

I agree, sometimes you just want some shorter stuff, get to the point, get in and out. The older, long, epic Maiden tunes were great, though.