I agree. I'm glad it was an entire song and not some sort of medley. But even he can't fix the song. For some reason after the climax, Steve needlessly felt he needed another verse.
Never thought that myself, but I see where you are coming from. Going into the quiet outro after the 'genius must die' line would be quite cool.
Exactly. Or even just end it with "The genius must die".
I have to disagree on this one. In fact, I think that hearing Blaze belt out "Now I stand alone in darkness..." is one of the highlights of the album for me.
I do emphatically agree about the production, and there are some other songs that could probably use some tweaking. But at the same time, I think that this album is one of those that's rough and raw in a way that works. And I'd be worried that taking too heavy a hand to it might have ruined its strange brilliance. It was never going to be a commercial success, anyway. Far too dark, and Blaze was too sharp of a departure from Bruce.
Virtual XI is the real missed opportunity, I'd say. I love it, but the production is still awful in a way that doesn't even have thematic plausibility. And there is an absolute beast of a song inside The Angel and the Gambler that 'Arry just... botched.