The Iron Maiden Thread v. The Merge of Souls

[Zydar]

Some very sketchy rumors about a new album?

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/community_feed/iron_maiden_to_release_new_album_this_year.html

"What is known is that all the musicians, their wives, and the producer are at the same time in Paris, where Guillaume Tell Studios is located, where Maiden recorded "Brave New World" (2000) and "The Book of Souls". Kevin Shirley even posted pictures of the studio, saying he was almost finalizing a major project."

[cramx3]

I saw these rumors on the IM fan club forum, definitely seems like there might be something to it.  They've been pretty good at keeping this stuff secret lately with TBoS too.

[jammindude]

Has it really been FOUR YEARS since BoS?

Am I the only one who feels like it just came out?

When I was 18, it seemed like an ETERNITY waiting 4 years for Hysteria. Now IM takes 4 years and I feel like their last album just came out.

[MirrorMask]

Not "just came out" but yeah, it still feels like their latest, recent album. To think that in the time that passed since The Book of Souls' release, in the 1980's we got Iron Maiden, Killers, The Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind give or take the exact months.... 

[Logain Ablar]

Official live video of Flight Of Icarus (Live from the Legacy Of The Beast Tour)

 

Brilliant! Me want flamethrower..

Very exciting to hear about a new album. However, I'm one of those ones that would like to hear what a new producer would do with them. Maybe someone who would help trim any unnecessary fat from the songs, to keep things concise and punchy. I'm not a huge fan of the "raw" sound that they've been going for over the last few albums. A touch more "production" could be good, especially on the vocals. Maybe some harmony vocals this time?

[Mladen]

The rumours have been swirling around for two to three months now. People took photographs with the band members in the streets of Paris. I'm confident the new album has already been recorded. 

[The Curious Orange]

Very exciting to hear about a new album. However, I'm one of those ones that would like to hear what a new producer would do with them. Maybe someone who would help trim any unnecessary fat from the songs, to keep things concise and punchy. I'm not a huge fan of the "raw" sound that they've been going for over the last few albums. A touch more "production" could be good, especially on the vocals. Maybe some harmony vocals this time?

Never gonna happen. A different producer might get something else out of them, but 'Arry is still the boss, and that's the way he likes it. There's a lovely bit in the Flight 666 documentary where Kevin Shirley decides to tell the band that all their songs sound the same and they need something different, and 'Arry replies "What you need to understand is that we're Iron Maiden, and we don't give a sh*t".

[Logain Ablar]

Never gonna happen. A different producer might get something else out of them, but 'Arry is still the boss, and that's the way he likes it. There's a lovely bit in the Flight 666 documentary where Kevin Shirley decides to tell the band that all their songs sound the same and they need something different, and 'Arry replies "What you need to understand is that we're Iron Maiden, and we don't give a sh*t".

  That’s a good one. I suppose when you get to their level you can call all the shots, and who can blame them. I’d still like to hear something different, but you’re right - it’s probably not going to happen.

[Evermind]

I don't even mind that, I loved The Book of Souls.

[cramx3]

As cool as it would be for IM to add some new styles and change things up, it's hard to argue when they consistently put out good albums.  I feel like the songs that do go off the beaten path on their albums are the ones the fans generally dislike anyway.  They are just too good for me to feel like they need to do anything other than what they want to do.

[pg1067]

Now's as good of a time as any to ask this:

I'm a huge fan of Maiden and am well-versed in the catalog up through Fear of the Dark.

I've heard snippets of a couple songs on the two Bayley albums and have no real interest.

I know virtually nothing about the five "reunion" albums and would be interested in opinions about the best and worst of those albums, including, to the extent applicable, any resemblance between any of those albums and songs on them and the band's earlier albums/songs.

[goo-goo]

You should start with Brave New World and Book of Souls. I think those are to best reunion Maiden albums.

[Cool Chris]

I'd rank them:

AMoLad (in my IM top 5)
Book of Souls

Brave New World

Dance of Death


TFF

[El Barto]

Now's as good of a time as any to ask this:

I'm a huge fan of Maiden and am well-versed in the catalog up through Fear of the Dark.

I've heard snippets of a couple songs on the two Bayley albums and have no real interest.

I know virtually nothing about the five "reunion" albums and would be interested in opinions about the best and worst of those albums, including, to the extent applicable, any resemblance between any of those albums and songs on them and the band's earlier albums/songs.

A Matter of Life and Death ranks as a top tier album from any era. Seems like whenever people here start ranking their albums it's always pretty high up. I rank it in the top five. The rest of the reunion albums are kind of scattershot from person to person.

[Logain Ablar]

You’re going to get a range of opinions, but I’d say starting with BNW is a good shout. There’s a similar style between the reunion era albums, but to me, BNW feels like a good bridge between the old style and the new.

There are some top songs on all the reunion albums, but there’s also quite a few songs that sound similar to each other across the albums.

AMOLAD is a really consistent album, I think. Not too much padding in the songs and a strong theme running right through the album.

I enjoy TBOS, especially the title track, and Empire Of The Clouds but for me I think they could have chopped some of the songs and released a very strong single album, instead of a double.

Just my view, of course. Enjoy your voyage of discovery.

[bosk1]

Brave New World probably sounds the most like classic Maiden.  The next two do not stray far from that sound.  But to me, the songwriting is just better.  BNW sounds every bit like a Maiden album, but feels just a bit inconsistent to me, with several songs that feel "unmemorable" to me.  The fourth, The Final Frontier, pushes the boundaries even farther and is my favorite Maiden album ever.  I would put Book of Souls down just a notch below that with Dance of Death and A Matter of Life and Death.

[Stadler]

Dance of Death.  LOVE that record.   AMOLAD is a top album, but it's a dense listening experience, in my humble opinion, and DoD breathes a little better.   I'm a big fan of "Book..." and "Final Frontier" as well.  BNW is least among the five, but it's all relative; that's an excellent record; and you have to see Blood Brothers live to believe it.  It brought the house down in Jersey couple'a years ago. 

[cramx3]

AMOLAD is their best album to my ears and I am a believer that the reunion era is better than the classic era, but I didn't live the classic era and have been full in since Dance of Death was released (I became a fan at that time, not due to the album just happened to be when IM clicked with me, and BNW was the first reunion era album I got). 

I'm not sure any of those albums sound like old school IM to compare it too, but I think they kind of all have a similar style to them in them selves.  Longer more progressive songs with a few shorter more old school style ones thrown in.

I also rate The Final Frontier as the worst of the reunion era so I personally wouldn't start there, but lots of people love that one more than me so at the end of the day all of these albums are great and I highly recommend you check them all out.

Also having said that, I find the Blaze albums to actually be musically similar to the reunion era, just done better (and I don't mean just vocals).

[MirrorMask]

Brave New World and then go on from there, chronologically.

[wolfking]

Official live video of Flight Of Icarus (Live from the Legacy Of The Beast Tour)

 

[TAC]

Now's as good of a time as any to ask this:

I'm a huge fan of Maiden and am well-versed in the catalog up through Fear of the Dark.

I've heard snippets of a couple songs on the two Bayley albums and have no real interest.

I know virtually nothing about the five "reunion" albums and would be interested in opinions about the best and worst of those albums, including, to the extent applicable, any resemblance between any of those albums and songs on them and the band's earlier albums/songs.

I'm amazed to even read this honestly. If you have missed out on the Reunion Era, you've missed out on an amazing 20 stretch of the band. They have release 5 great to excellent albums, along with 4 fantastic live albums.

I'm an older fan, but I would say that this 5 album run might be better than the Classic Era run of NOTB thru SSOASS.

You'll get everyone hooting and hollering their favorite, but I would honestly start and go chronologically.

[wolfking]

Now's as good of a time as any to ask this:

I'm a huge fan of Maiden and am well-versed in the catalog up through Fear of the Dark.

I've heard snippets of a couple songs on the two Bayley albums and have no real interest.

I know virtually nothing about the five "reunion" albums and would be interested in opinions about the best and worst of those albums, including, to the extent applicable, any resemblance between any of those albums and songs on them and the band's earlier albums/songs.

I'm amazed to even read this honestly. If you have missed out on the Reunion Era, you've missed out on an amazing 20 stretch of the band. They have release 5 great to excellent albums, along with 4 fantastic live albums.

I'm an older fan, but I would say that this 5 album run might be better than the Classic Era run of NOTB thru SSOASS.

You'll get everyone hooting and hollering their favorite, but I would honestly start and go chronologically.

[TAC]

I have to find the thread with the poll I did a few years back.

[krands85]

AMOLAD is their best album to my ears and I am a believer that the reunion era is better than the classic era, but I didn't live the classic era and have been full in since Dance of Death was released (I became a fan at that time, not due to the album just happened to be when IM clicked with me, and BNW was the first reunion era album I got). 

I'm not sure any of those albums sound like old school IM to compare it too, but I think they kind of all have a similar style to them in them selves.  Longer more progressive songs with a few shorter more old school style ones thrown in.

I also rate The Final Frontier as the worst of the reunion era so I personally wouldn't start there, but lots of people love that one more than me so at the end of the day all of these albums are great and I highly recommend you check them all out.

These are very close to my thoughts, except I'd have The Book of Souls above AMOLAD. BNW and DoD I rank pretty similarly and have them a bit behind the other two. Then there's a massive drop off to TFF, I just couldn't get on with that album at all for some reason.

I'd probably just go chronologically though, as I wouldn't necessarily say to start with my favourite TBoS, due to the fact it's a double album with 3 songs over 10 minutes.

[TAC]

It's a fake double album.

[TAC]

Here's the old thread with the poll (which is closed).

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=44551.0

[TAC]

Now's as good of a time as any to ask this:

I'm a huge fan of Maiden and am well-versed in the catalog up through Fear of the Dark.

I've heard snippets of a couple songs on the two Bayley albums and have no real interest.

I know virtually nothing about the five "reunion" albums and would be interested in opinions about the best and worst of those albums, including, to the extent applicable, any resemblance between any of those albums and songs on them and the band's earlier albums/songs.

I'm amazed to even read this honestly. If you have missed out on the Reunion Era, you've missed out on an amazing 20 stretch of the band. They have release 5 great to excellent albums, along with 4 fantastic live albums.

I'm an older fan, but I would say that this 5 album run might be better than the Classic Era run of NOTB thru SSOASS.

You'll get everyone hooting and hollering their favorite, but I would honestly start and go chronologically.

Yeah, but...

With this new album, I'm not so sure which I prefer now.  Probably still classic though, but it's tough.

[cramx3]

  I think its a good discussion but man those results don't favor the reunion era or make it look close.  I think it's definitely much closer than that poll but maybe not.  I guess since I became a fan during the reunion era, it is that era I cherish more for many personal reasons of my experiences seeing them live and whatnot.  But even if I just look at the albums, I think I like this more progressive raw style personally for the band.

But as TAC also mentioned, theres 4 live albums from this era and this is just fantastic live material, albeit there's lots of repeat songs.  The En Vivo blu-ray and Flight 666 are spectacles to watch too.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Now's as good of a time as any to ask this:

I'm a huge fan of Maiden and am well-versed in the catalog up through Fear of the Dark.

I've heard snippets of a couple songs on the two Bayley albums and have no real interest.

I know virtually nothing about the five "reunion" albums and would be interested in opinions about the best and worst of those albums, including, to the extent applicable, any resemblance between any of those albums and songs on them and the band's earlier albums/songs.

I don't think you can go wrong with any of the reunion albums. Although I would say The Final Frontier is my least favorite of the bunch. The Book of Souls, A Matter of Life and Death, and Brave New World are my favorites, in no particular order. Dance of Death is somewhere in between.

[soupytwist]

Dance of Death is probably one of the hardest Maiden albums to rank.  It's probably their most diverse sounding album and has some of the very best songs Maiden have ever recorded on it, as well as some of the weakest.

[Stadler]

Gun to head, I'm an old school Maiden fan (the first rock concert I ever saw was Maiden opening for Priest; what a standard, huh?) but I'm not sure there's a band around from the 80's that is as consistently making progressive music like Maiden.  I get the knock, that Maiden isn't exactly reinventing themselves every album, but having said that, there's a far greater distance between, say, Book Of Souls or AMOLAD and, say, Seventh Son than Black Ice and Flick Of The Switch, or Hardwired and Master of Puppets. 

[Samsara]

Dance of Death is probably one of the hardest Maiden albums to rank.  It's probably their most diverse sounding album and has some of the very best songs Maiden have ever recorded on it, as well as some of the weakest.

Agreed. I am a full album guy, and I never listen to it because it is so inconsistent. But there are a few gems on it that get put on any compilation playlists I do for road trips and such. Paschendale comes immediately to mind. In fact, I'll go listen to the record now. It has been a LONG time since I played it.

[Stadler]

Journeyman.  Top five, maybe top three, Maiden song ever.

[pg1067]

So...I had forgotten that I had imported a friend's copy of Brave New World onto my iTunes a few years back and never listened to it.  I also bought, but never or rarely listened to Dance of Death.  I listened to the first two songs on BNW today on the way into the office.  I've heard The Wicker Man and Ghost of the Navigator live when I saw Maiden with DT in 2010.  Both are pretty good songs, but it appears that BNW is brick-walled, so the first two songs were very noisy.  I couldn't really distinguish the bass, which is very odd for Maiden.  Obviously, TWM has a highly repetitive chorus.  I think I preferred GotN.

One funny part of this is that my iPod has a tendency to group albums of the same name by different bands together.  As a result, after TWM was done, the opening track from Styx's Brave New World album started playing.  I didn't immediately recognize it and thought, "hmmm...this is a bit of an odd sound for Maiden."  I finally figured it out when Tommy Shaw started signing.   

[cramx3]

  I actually love the sound of BNW though, I may think it's IM"s best sounding album to my ears.