Trollheart

Track title: “The Edge of Darkness”
Album: The X Factor
Year: 1995
Written by: Steve Harris/Blaze Bayley/Janick Gers
Subject: Vietnam?
Type: Slow brooder to fast rocker. Um.
Length: 6:39
Familiar? No
Rating: 4/10
Ah well, it had to happen some time! Here we go with a track, the first track – in this thread, not on the album – from the much and in my view correctly-maligned first album following Bruce Dickinson's departure. I've been unremitting in my critcism of this album, but has that been fair? I haven't listened to it again since it was released, so that's over twenty years now, so perhaps I'll have mellowed towards it, or some of it. Yeah...

It's got a dark, brooding opening anyway, which actually reminds me seriously of Bon Jovi's “As My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms” (shut up; what do you know?) and the vocal when it comes in from Bayley first is low and almost muttered, but then he explodes into life as Nicko's drums pound in alongside the guitars with a sort of staccato beat before the familiar Maiden riffs come in and the song starts to trip along. Blazing solos (that's specifically for you, Batty) coming in now as Bayley fades out, coming back in strongly but then everything slows down and the rhythm returns to that staccato thing I was talking about earlier, fading out on almost acoustic guitar as Bayley's voice murmurs the last lines. Okay, not terrible, but a long way from the kind of thing I expect from Maiden.

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MicShazam

My personal reactions to the 4 previous tracks:

Infinite Dreams is awesome. Absolutely top level Maiden.
The Edge of Darkness is one of the reasons why the X Factor album is underrated.
All of The Final Frontier is flat out boring. Honestly, post-Brave New World albums from this band are pointless.

Trollheart

My reactions to your reactions:

It is good, not saying it isn't. But the ones I mentioned I feel are much better. Pretty solid album all round.
The jury's still out on that, but if this is the case, then I think I was probably justified in my hatred of the album cos Maiden can do so much better.
I don't think, at this point, I'd have any problem with that statement. BNW is where I stopped really listening to Maiden as anything other than "Oh there's a new album out? Download, must listen to some time" and seldom ever did. I kind of feel I didn't miss much really.

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The Batlord

I haven't been keeping up much with post-BNW Maiden, but A Matter of Life and Death grew on me a hell of a lot after a while. They're not a prog band, but honestly their poppier material has worn on me as the years have gone by, and their moderately more proggy stuff has stayed with me more as they actually do have the songwriting talent to do more than crank out pop metal hit after pop metal hit, and their post-Powerslave music (for certain albums) has stayed more fresh to me than the stuff before it. It's just a shame that Bruce's vocals have taken such a nose dive in the past two decades, but he's old enough that it's quite understandable.

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MicShazam

For me, Bruce's voice really has become a problem. He just doesn't sound good to me anymore. Same problem with James Hetfield. I don't like his singing at all on post 2000 albums.

The Batlord

Haven't listened to their last two albums, but it was at least passable as of A Matter of Life and Death. They're not the galloping band they used to be, so a more restrained Bruce still works, but if he's straight up gone down the drain since, which I can totally see, then... honestly they should probably just hang up the irons and do one last mega tour.

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Trollheart

Again, I can't comment at the moment, as, as I said, I've listened to every album post Brave New World once, perhaps twice, and none of them have made any sort of an impression on me. I really thought the return of Bruce and BNW would signal a rebirth and a second golden age for the band, but it just hasn't worked out that way. Guess we all get old. Maybe it's time to hand over to the young guns, having created their own metal mythology by now that will probably never be surpassed?

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The Batlord

Honestly you should give A Matter of Life and Death a few more listens. It's not nearly as immediately accessible as their early classics, but it definitely is one of their better albums in general and deserves to be given a chance to grow on you. I think they're a better band than you're giving them credit for tbh. I mean "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg" at the very least should give you pause. It's not even a typical Maiden song but still manages to have the catchy riffs to make it into quite possibly the only mid-tempo, seriously heavy song that Maiden has ever produced, and it's also pretty accessible right from the off. It's a different Maiden song that's by far one of their best, proving that they still had creativity in them at least as far as 2006.

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Trollheart

I'm pretty sure I heard that. I mean, I did listen to each album once, but can I say the same about anything from the debut to Fear of the Dark, and then Brave New World? No, I can't, cos they're all excellent albums. Ok, No Prayer for the Dying has its bad moments, as does FotD ("Weekend Warrior" guys? Really?) but in general they're all albums I'd listen to over and over. I might skip the odd track but I'd listen to them. I'd want to listen to them. The "new" ones have not had that effect on me. I think some of it has to do with the overpreponderance of epic tracks. I mean, I love love love Maiden, but I don't want a ten-minute song every second track. There's only so much of that you can take, I feel, and now they've almost broken the twenty-minute barrier.

And let's be honest, "Empire of the Clouds" is interesting when you hear it the first time - if not only for the long piano intro - but are you really gonna listen to it over and over? Nah: it's a novelty and once you've heard it, that's kind of it. "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", on the other hand - even though it's like five minutes shorter - I'll listen to over and over again, cos its well put together and never gets dull. If "Empire" comes up here, I'll listen to it, certainly, but I'll be struggling through it and likely glad when it's over. I never wanted to have to say that about a Maiden track, but there it is. I feel The Final Frontier can suck my balls too.

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Trollheart

Oh, and while I'm at it, you may not care MicShaz but I should congratulate you on Denmark getting through to the World Cup. Definitely the better team, though this is Ireland we're talking about; doesn't take much to beat us. Eriksen was on fire though, fair play to the ****.

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