No Prayer For the Dying (1990)
Bruce Dickinson - Vocals
Dave Murray - Guitars
Janick Gers - Guitars
Steve Harris - Bass
Nicko McBrain - Drums
(1998 remaster cover)
When Maiden reconvened in early 1990 after a year off, they quickly hit a roadblock: Adrian Smith decided to leave the band. Like most Maiden departures up until this point, there was a level of mutuality between Adrian and the rest of the band in his decision to leave. Adrian felt that he wasn’t fully into it anymore. He recently married and was planning on starting a family which made the idea of yet another full album/tour cycle very unappealing. A reliably straight shooter in situations like these, Steve Harris made it clear that if Adrian wasn’t completely dedicated to Maiden, it was necessary for them to find someone else.
Luckily, the search for Adrian’s replacement was quick and easy. Having just worked with Bruce Dickinson on his solo album and being well known to everyone in the band already, the obvious choice was Janick Gers. Janick was given 24 hours to learn Iron Maiden, The Prisoner, and Children of the Damned for an audition. Needless to say, he nailed it and was offered the job.
By the time Janick joined, the album was already mostly written. The band originally planned to record in a London studio, but since things had moved along so quickly they decided to go in a different direction rather than wait for the studio to become available. Steve had a barn that Maiden used as a rehearsal studio and the band enjoyed the vibe so much that they decided to just record the album there. To record, they used a mobile studio (the same one that Led Zeppelin used to record Physical Graffiti).
No Prayer is a strange album. After a period of experimentation and taking the progressive element as far as it could conceivably go, the band decided to go back to their roots and go for a more direct approach with the songwriting. They wanted to recapture the “street” vibe of Maiden that dominated the first two albums. As a result, the keyboard usage was cut back severely (they only appear on two songs) and there are no songs that exceed the 6 minute mark. The only other album not to feature any longer songs was Killers. The lyrical themes also saw an overhaul with this album. The mythological, fantastical, and science fiction tinged lyrics were exchanged for historic topics and social commentary. Holy Smoke shows Maiden taking a stab at a popular topic in Metal at the time (although they were pretty late to the party): televangelists. Mother Russia is a brief commentary on the fall of the soviet union. Tailgunner shows the long awaited return of Maiden’s war themed songs with a trip back to World War II.
To complement the change in style, Bruce traded in his operatic singing style for something more raspy and aggressive. He was already experimenting with the different singing style on his solo album, but on No Prayer he goes all out with it.
The writing for No Prayer was kickstarted by Bruce Dickinson’s solo effort, Bring Your Daughter To the Slaughter. Steve Harris liked the song so much that he insisted that Bruce leave it off his solo album and save it for the next Maiden album. The straightforward hard rock sound of the song seemed to shape the album’s overall direction.
With one of the key songwriters out of the band, new songwriting collaborations were formed. Bruce and Steve worked together for the first time on the previous album with Only the Good Die Young and the partnership naturally continued on the next album. On No Prayer, the duo wrote 3 songs together. Tailgunner is a return to the energetic Harris opener with an air battle theme, although the lyrics were written by Bruce. It’s very similar to Aces High and Where Eagles Dare, sharing a similar structure and high energy. Holy Smoke, the album’s lead single, is a more commercial track that has an almost hard rock drive. Finally, there’s Run Silent Run Deep, which features lyrics that were left over from Bruce’s Somewhere In Time rejects.
The album is also unusual in that it features two Dave Murray contributions. Public Enema Number One is Dave’s first collaboration with Bruce and the first time he collaborated with anybody other than Steve. It’s an interesting combination with Dave’s usual lyrical guitar melodies and Bruce’s newfound aggressive vocal style and his vivid lyrics. The other Murray contribution is a more familiar collaboration with Steve Harris, Fates Warning. This song features the typical slow bluesy intro followed by a fast paced rocker. Where Dave’s contributions up until this point were often among the more forgotten tracks, his two contributions to No Prayer stand as some of the most memorable and arguably the best tracks on the album.
Always the primary songwriter, Steve Harris dominated the writing for this album. On the previous few albums he had relaxed some of his hold on the writing to let in more ideas from Bruce and Adrian, but Adrian’s departure left a void that Steve was happy to fill. 8 of the 10 songs are credited to Steve and three were written on his own. The Assassin thematically feels like a spiritual successor to Killers, although musically it is quite different. The other two Harris songs are the closest this album gets to the prog influence of the late 80’s. The title track is like a followup to Infinite Dreams, featuring a slow bluesy intro followed by a heavier conclusion, all in a shorter song format. The lyrics are also similar, dealing with the familiar Harris topics of dreams, spirituality, and inner turmoil. Mother Russia is the closest thing to an epic on this album, and is the longest song just shy of 6 minutes. These two songs also feature the only appearances of keyboards on the album.
Despite leaving the band, Adrian still leaves a mark on this album. Hooks In You was a song Bruce and Adrian worked on together before he left the band and it is musically what you would expect from the duo. While it is seen by many as one of Maiden’s weakest songs, it still contains most of the same traits as in other Smith/Dickinson efforts. Hooks In You is to this day the only Maiden song that credits a member who is not currently in the band.
Since Janick joined so late in the game, he was not able to contribute to the writing process. His playing is also somewhat understated on this album. He was used to being the only guitarist in the bands he played in, so having to share the stage with another guitar player, let alone one who had been in the band since the beginning, was a challenge. This may be a controversial opinion, but I find No Prayer to be the closest Maiden ever got to making a “one guitar” album. Obviously Janick plays on everything, but the twin guitar harmonies are less utilized and the solo tradeoff isn’t quite the same as what you got with Adrian and Dave. Where those two players often complemented each other with different tones on playing styles, Janick is very close in style to Dave. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish the two players. This is not a slight against Janick, by the next album he was settled and found his place in the band as a writer and as a player, but on No Prayer he seems to be more in a “hired gun” role. It’s different from when the other members joined and were immediately involved in the creative process.
Sticking to the “back to the roots” theme of No Prayer, it was natural to go the same route with the artwork. Derek Riggs was commissioned to create a “classic” Eddie design. This was something Riggs was not enthusiastic about, as he wanted to continue with the “deconstruction” of Eddie that was depicted on the artwork for Seventh Son. The album covers up until this point had a level of progression. There wasn’t a concrete story behind the covers, but they were still linear in design. All covers after Piece of Mind showed the screws in his head from the lobotomy, the cyborg design from Somewhere In Time continued into Seventh Son. On No Prayer, these features are all gone and Eddie’s look is closer to the first album. The graveyard scene was also less extravagant and other-worldly, the way the older covers were. This marked the beginning of Iron Maiden album covers that didn’t feature a sequence in the Eddie designs. Eddie might be general of an army of the undead for one album and a space monster on the next. This was also the last time Eddie was drawn exclusively by Riggs, but more on that later.
No Prayer is one of the band’s most controversial albums and marks the beginning of what many see as a decline in quality for the band. Man fans were blindsided by the band’s sudden change in direction. While fans of Maiden’s early days were delighted to hear a return to that style, those who followed the band’s progression over the years were disappointed to find the growth coming to a sudden halt. Even some who did welcome the change weren’t impressed with the actual content of the music. Many see it as the band’s worst album. Some question Bruce’s commitment to the band, citing his change in approach to the vocals, despite his claims that Tattooed Millionaire gave him the space necessary to get excited about the next Maiden album. Their sales also began to decline, becoming the second album in a row not to reach platinum status in the US. However, they were still doing well in the UK and charted at #2 with the album. The Bring Your Daughter To the Slaughter single also became the band’s first UK #1, although that is largely credited to them releasing it during Christmas when there was little competition and with several different “collectable” versions.
Despite all this, there is still much to appreciate about No Prayer. It was the beginning of a new decade and a new lineup for the band. The 80s were gone and Maiden embraced the changes by trying something new. There are some really good songs on here, Especially from Dave Murray. Like Tattooed Millionaire, it is best to approach this album not expecting Seventh Son or a masterpiece. Taken on its own merits, it is a decent effort and an important moment in the band’s history.
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