No Prayer for the Dying (1990)1.
2.3.
4.5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
After Maiden released their proggiest album ever with
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Steve Harris felt that the band should strip down their sound and write a rawer, more simple album. Adrian Smith, dissatisfied with this direction for the band, opted to depart after contributing one song to the eighth Iron Maiden record: Hooks In You, cowritten with Bruce Dickinson.
No Prayer for the Dying came out in 1990 and did in fact feature a relatively simple, raw style. The lyrical direction also took a turn away from serious historical and philosophical topics into a mixture of the old style of lyrics and crass political or sexual joke songs. For these reasons, as well reasons of overall quality, most fans consider
No Prayer to be one of the weakest Iron Maiden albums and the beginning of a period of decline for the band. However, the album still undoubtedly has at least a few Maiden-worthy cuts, such as the title track or the scaled-back but still-impressive Maiden epic Mother Russia.
____________
I'm going to need to do a relisten to this one before I can vote. I don't even know what I'm coming for first, though I think it's probably Bring Your Daughter or maybe The Assassin. Personally, I don't think there are many bad songs on this album, just a lot of middling tracks and few standouts. I'll listen to the album tomorrow, but I imagine I'll cast my vote for Bring Your Daughter... To the Slaughter