When 1999 began, Iron Maiden had decided to fire singer Blaze Bayley and reunite with Bruce Dickinson. This was one of the most important turns in the band’s history. The major question is how Steve Harris came to the conclusion, and how the new line-up of Maiden would secure their longevity in the new millennium.
“I can’t see Iron Maiden ever becoming massive again to the same degree as Sabbath and KISS have become, as we don’t have an Ozzy or the make-up gimmick.”
Steve Harris, September 1998
“I’m not keeping the seat warm for anyone in this band.”
Blaze Bayley, September 1998
Blaze Bayley was certainly not intended to be a placeholder in Iron Maiden, a stand-in for the interim until Bruce Dickinson decided to return. And Steve Harris was right about his band not being as nostalgia-prone as either Black Sabbath or KISS, who had both reunited their classic line-ups to enormously successful effect in the 1990s.
But what did Iron Maiden have? It might not have been obvious at the time, and it might have been one of the least likely hard rock reunions, but there was a potential cracker of an opportunity on the horizon, and manager Rod Smallwood had glimpsed it: The chance to set up the return of Maiden’s best singer and greet the new millennium with both new music and powerful concerts that would no longer be restrained by a limited vocal range or poor production values. Dickinson had told Smallwood that he was open to the idea. Would Harris also be?
“That’s how it was for some time. Rod was being his bombastic, bullying best, ’cause he knew I wasn’t into it at all. […] But then I thought, ‘Well, if the change happens, who would we get?’ The thing is, we know Bruce and we know what he’s capable of.”
Steve Harris
Slowly, Harris came around to the idea, and a meeting was set. “As soon as we walked in the room, we gave each other a big hug and it evaporated,” Dickinson told Maiden biographer Mick Wall about the immediately dissipating tension in his exploratory discussion with Harris. “Literally, like, boof! Gone.”
1998 was the year that saw Iron Maiden release their underwhelming Virtual XI album and come to the end of their Blaze period. As a disappointing year of touring wound down, Maiden and manager Smallwood were at the point where a major decision had to be made. Iron Maiden had stalled.
Click here for the full story of Virtual XI and Blaze Bayley’s exit from Maiden!
According to Wall’s official Maiden book, Run To The Hills, Maiden decided to part company with Bayley, and then set up a meeting with Dickinson to discuss the idea of a reunion in January 1999. But this sequence of events does not agree with a less official chronology in which Maiden mended fences with Dickinson in late 1998, before giving Bayley the boot. In fact, it seems likely that everyone else in the band new that Bayley would be going when they played their final Virtual XI shows in South America in December 1998.
Blaze Bayley works up a sweat with Iron Maiden on the Virtual XI tour in 1998, but would soon face dismissal from the band.
In February 1999, Iron Maiden announced their reunion with both Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith in a six-man line-up that also retained guitarist Janick Gers next to original member Dave Murray. All was set for a summer 1999 reunion tour and a new album to be released in 2000. Most Maiden fans were ecstatic at the news, but what had happened behind the scenes that took everyone to this point at the end of the 1990s?
ROCK BOTTOM
The painful truth is that Iron Maiden were in bad shape in 1998. The loss of Adrian Smith in 1990 and Bruce Dickinson in 1993 had hurt their creativity and ability immensely. Both Smith and Dickinson had left because of heartfelt frustrations with their creative environment, and band leader Steve Harris drove Maiden on with The X Factor in 1995. Recruiting Bayley and producing Maiden in his own studio, displaying that trademark grim determination, Harris attempted to build a new beast.
Despite what Bayley sometimes says to defend his time in the band, Maiden were not “bigger than ever” anywhere at that point, not even in South America or Scandinavia. In countries like Argentina and Brazil they played stadiums, but mostly as part of classic rock and metal festival bills, and in countries like Denmark, Norway and Sweden they were playing smaller places and fewer shows than ever. In Britain and North America, Maiden were merely a pale shadow of their former selves, playing theaters and clubs most of the time.
Iron Maiden on a smaller stage during the Blaze era.
Album and ticket sales had nosedived because Iron Maiden no longer appealed to anyone but their absolute hardcore fanbase, which itself had also dwindled to a size far smaller than it once was. Through no fault of Bayley or Gers, Maiden had lost three key ingredients that were needed to elevate them: a world-class singer and frontman, a sophisticated guitarist and songwriter, and a producer to fill the Martin Birch-shaped hole in Iron Maiden’s sound.
No doubt, Rod Smallwood knew this. The 1998 album and tour was a final roll of the dice, and it failed. For Maiden to return to power, drastic measures had to be taken. Smallwood had to get Harris to look back for once, and consider the importance of past members of the team in light of Maiden’s diminishing fortunes. In the event, Harris would prove to be a bigger visionary than many gave him credit for at the time.
To go forward would mean going back.
THE SLOW RETURN OF ADRIAN SMITH
Adrian had gone fishing, literally. After a decade in the spotlight as one half of Maiden’s incredible 1980s guitar duo, he quit the band in early 1990, when they started working on what would become No Prayer For The Dying. A quiet life in the countryside beckoned, and Smith got his fishing rods out.
“It felt strange at first, I admit, but at the same time it felt like it was a weight off my shoulders. The truth is, I was unhappy. […] I think I just needed a complete change of scene. I don’t think I even looked at a guitar for a while.”
Adrian Smith
It is therefore fairly surprising to learn that Smith auditioned for fellow British rock heroes Def Leppard in late 1991 or early 1992, with a view to replacing the recently deceased Steve Clark. Smith has never spoken in depth about why he considered a return to the spotlight in such a high-profile band just a couple of years after leaving Maiden, but Leppard drummer Rick Allen has stated that, “I loved the idea. It was a compliment that he was so into it.”
It seems that the notoriously indecisive Adrian Smith was already in two minds about whether to enjoy retirement or get back on stage. The Def Leppard job would ultimately go to Vivian Campbell, but Smith showed up when his former band played Donington Monsters Of Rock in August 1992, and joined them on stage for a rendition of Running Free:
Hanging out backstage, Smith later admitted that he felt emotionally overwhelmed. “They were so good it felt bad, it really did,” he told Mick Wall. “To see the songs I used to play, that I had written, being played and I wasn’t there with them on stage… I felt torn in two.” The former Maiden guitarist gulped his whisky and eventually strode onstage to a massive reception, delivering a short and sweet performance that seemed to be his final goodbye to the Maiden fans.
“When he left the band in 1990, I think everybody was a bit surprised at how much we missed him. And certainly, I don’t think anybody had realised how much the fans would miss him – big time.”
Bruce Dickinson
It would not be long before Smith put a new band together for himself. He had enjoyed making his debut solo album back in 1989, the Silver And Gold record that was released under the ASAP moniker (meaning Adrian Smith And Project). During the course of 1992 and 1993, Smith formed a band called The Untouchables, with guitarist Carl Dufresne and former The Cult bassist Jamie Stewart. While playing clubs for fun, the line-up coalesced into Smith on guitar and vocals, Dufresne on guitar, bassist Gary Leideman, and former Bruce Dickinson drummer Fabio Del Rio:
Possibly realizing that he felt (and looked) uneasy as a frontman, Smith decided to recruit singer Solli, previously of Norwegian rockers Sons of Angels and Scott Gorham’s band 21 Guns. Solli had been recommended to Smith by Steve Harris after he submitted a tape for the Dickinson replacement auditions in 1993. When Del Rio was replaced by former a-ha and 21 Guns drummer Mike Sturgis, the band became Psycho Motel and started working on their first album. State Of Mind was released in Japan in 1995 and the rest of the world in 1996, and was the first recorded sign of life from Adrian Smith since his Maiden days.
Psycho Motel would support Iron Maiden on the British leg of their first tour with Blaze Bayley in 1995, meaning that Smith actually had a close view of his former band’s struggles at the time. However, Smith claimed that, “I thought The X Factor was quite good, actually. The sort of thing Maiden’s built on, really.” Certainly, Smith had always stayed on friendly terms with Harris. But it was his close ties with Dickinson that would soon send his career in an unexpected direction.
THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF BRUCE DICKINSON
Having released his debut solo album Tattooed Millionaire in 1990, Dickinson forged ahead with Maiden for a further two records before leaving the band in 1993. At that point he was in the middle of creating what would ultimately become his first post-Maiden album, Balls To Picasso (1994), but not until the third attempt.
After ditching a first attempt produced by Chris Tsangarides, Dickinson hired American producer Keith Olsen for a second attempt in late 1992, as Maiden were on tour with their Fear Of The Dark album. “I went on tour with Maiden and I called him from Sydney,” Dickinson would tell Kerrang! magazine. “I’d been up all night and I said, ‘Keith, I want to start the record again.” Olsen would explain to Dickinson’s unauthorized biographer Joe Shooman that the singer was searching for something completely different:
“He wanted to do something really radically different, and we did. He wanted to have it programmed instead of played, he didn’t want to have any metal in it at all. He wanted to be a hundred and eighty degrees away from Maiden. And all that I can say is that we tried. It was unique. It had some merit to it. But that’s not what he does best.”
Keith Olsen
The results ended up being too different, or as Dickinson would later say, “I learned an awful lot about what I didn’t want to do out of that record.” In 1993 Dickinson left Maiden and also ditched his second solo album attempt. Having turned too far away from his heavy metal roots, the singer started a third attempt, this time co-writing the songs with guitarist Roy Z, a talented player and composer that Dickinson had met during the Keith Olsen sessions in Los Angeles. Dickinson recalled the nearly megalomaniacal risk of his ever-expanding project to Metal Hammer magazine:
“By the time I got to the third album I used to get up in the morning and look in the mirror and giggle. The record company advance went about half-way through the second one, so from then on basically I was spending all the money that I had saved up from the whole Iron Maiden thing! I used to have occasional sudden panic attacks in the high street and have to go and sit down and give myself a good slap around the head and go, ‘It’s gonna be all right, your kids will not be sleeping under a park bench.'”
Bruce Dickinson
Bruce Dickinson pondering his artistic direction in the mid-1990s.
After the release of Balls To Picasso, Dickinson went on tour with the band that he wanted to be known as Skunkworks: himself, guitarist Alex Dickson, bassist Chris Dale, and drummer Alessandro Elena. In short order, the singer and the guitarist started writing the songs that were recorded for the Skunkworks (1996) album, the most alternative and possibly most artistically ambitious of all Bruce Dickinson records. Producer Jack Endino was brought in to give the music a grungy edge:
“He explained his whole solo situation, and how he wanted to make a modern-sounding hard rock record that didn’t necessarily sound like what he’d done before. He seemed to know a lot about what I’d been up to in Seattle.”
Jack Endino
However, this was also the point at which Dickinson’s career stalled completely in commercial terms. The alternative crowd did not care for his metal credentials, and the metal crowd did not care for his alternative music. With Skunkworks opening for German power metal band Helloween on tour in 1996, the divided world of rock music left Bruce Dickinson disillusioned. When it also became clear that he and the rest of Skunkworks had very different ideas about where to go from there, he split the band up and considered retirement from music.
“Feeling sorry for myself is not my natural state, and I sat at home one night staring at the walls, pondering the life of a tube driver. The Metropolitan line seemed quite interesting: long trips, nice views, open countryside. The phone rang. It was 11.30 pm.”
Bruce Dickinson
The person who turned it all around was Roy Z. That night in late 1996 he rang Dickinson to tell him about a bunch of heavy metal riffs he had come up with and suggested they write new songs together. A very hesitant singer was eventually convinced to give it a shot when he heard the riffs for what would become the track Accident Of Birth, and he would later recall the liberating sensation to The Bruce Dickinson Wellbeing Network:
“And then it was like a big light went on in my head: ‘I can do this, I know exactly what to do on this record, exactly. I don’t know any of the songs yet, but I know I can write them.’ Then I thought, ‘If this fails it will be the last album I ever make,’ and I thought, ‘I don’t give a shit.'”
Bruce Dickinson
Dickinson with the band that would write and record his two most celebrated solo albums, Accident Of Birth and The Chemical Wedding: Adrian Smith, David Ingraham, Bruce, Roy Z, Eddie Casillas.
Accident Of Birth (1997) was a massive return to form. And just to make Maiden comparisons inevitable, as well as to spark endless rumors of a reunion with the Harris crew, Dickinson took Adrian Smith along for the ride. Smith wrote songs and played on the record, and he became a permanent member of the Bruce Dickinson band, alongside Roy Z, bassist Eddie Casillas, and drummer David Ingraham. When Dickinson, Z and Smith followed up Accident Of Birth with the even more impressive The Chemical Wedding in 1998, they wiped the floor with that year’s dismal Maiden offering Virtual XI.
Bruce Dickinson had explored, he had searched, he had given his all, and he had ultimately arrived at a change of heart: “I think I have come to the conclusion that this metal thing within me runs deep. It is a true and sincere part of me.” On tour in 1997 and 1998, Dickinson proved that his true calling in life is that of heavy metal singer, as his band blazed through a scorching set that also included the Iron Maiden tunes 2 Minutes To Midnight, Powerslave, Flight Of Icarus and Run To The Hills:
Iron Maiden fans were beginning to sense that they could have a better Maiden than the one Harris toured the world with in 1998. And Smallwood had started working behind the scenes to facilitate a reconciliation, talking to Harris and Dickinson separately about the possibility of reuniting. While Dickinson quickly confirmed his interest, Harris was understandably less enthusiastic.
“I was aware that over in Maidenworld things were not quite so chirpy,” Dickinson writes in his autobiography. “It was hard for the band to adjust to their dwindling audience, particularly in the USA. There were only a few options open to Maiden, and one of them was to ask me to rejoin.”
Eventually, Harris came to accept the truth of what Smallwood was saying, that Maiden could be bigger and better than they were with Blaze Bayley.
In late 1998 he agreed to meet his former singer for a talk.
COMING HOME
It was an early afternoon in Brighton in the south of England, sometime in the fall of 1998. Iron Maiden, minus their current singer Blaze Bayley, convened at the home of manager Rod Smallwood. They were waiting for Bruce Dickinson, their estranged former vocalist, to arrive for a tentative discussion with Steve Harris. Would it be possible for the two of them to bury the hatchet and agree to rejoin forces?
“Although a lot of people said they’d like to see it, never in a million years did I think it would actually happen.”
Adrian Smith
The picture you thought you would never see. Bruce Dickinson and Steve Harris together again for the new millennium, after their Brighton meeting went better than either of them had thought.
The timing of this meeting is disputed. The official Maiden biography states that it happened in January 1999, after Blaze Bayley had been fired, but this timeline is contradicted by much of what the band members themselves have said in retrospect. Indeed, Bayley recently told Rolling Stone that when he came into the January 1999 meeting where he was fired from Maiden, the return of Bruce had been sorted out: “That decision had been made quite a while ago. I was totally unaware of it.”
In a 2018 interview with Classic Rock magazine, drummer Nicko McBrain recalled that, “I was sitting in a sake bar in Roppongi, Japan, with Rod and Janick. And Rod turned round and told me that Adrian was coming back with Bruce and asked what did I think about it.” Provided that Nicko remembers correctly, which the level of detail strongly suggests that he does, this means that Bruce and Steve had at least agreed to discuss it when Maiden were touring Japan with Blaze in November 1998, and that manager Smallwood was letting McBrain and Gers know that a meeting was set up.
The present account is based on the most likely assumption that the meeting took place before Maiden finished their Virtual XI tour, as Nicko claims, “after we got back from Japan.” Bruce also remembers that he called his solo band in to tell them about the plans for a Maiden meeting, so it must certainly have happened while they were on tour in late 1998. An educated guess would be that the meeting was set for late November, ahead of Dickinson’s British tour and Maiden’s visit to South America, possibly Sunday 29 November 1998.
Dickinson was faced with a 180 degree career turn, rejoining Iron Maiden and essentially hanging up his solo boots, at least in terms of being a live act. But Roy Z and the rest of the band were in no doubt when Bruce told them of the upcoming meeting: “You have to do it. The world needs Iron Maiden.” Indeed, fate seemed to be calling him back to his former band, and the call would also change the course of the future for Adrian Smith.
Steve Harris had suggested to Rod Smallwood that if Dickinson was coming back, they should ask Smith to return as well. But first, that conversation between the singer and the bassist who had created such classic metal between them in the 1980s had to be navigated. Could they possibly patch things up and look ahead together?
“They all came down to my house in Brighton. It was important they both feel comfortable and not feel they had everybody’s eyes on them, so we did it in the lounge at my house. Bruce came down and explained why he’d left in the first place. Then Steve said his piece, which was basically, ‘Why do you wanna come back now?'”
Rod Smallwood
Indeed, Harris and Dickinson had never had this discussion when the singer decided that he wanted to leave. Now, better late than never, they exchanged thoughts and experiences. The Maiden leader was wary that his former singer was simply acting the part of wanting to come back, that he would eventually leave again after a year or two, but Dickinson quickly put him at ease. The pair’s account to Mick Wall tells of a swift and constructive discussion:
“I hadn’t spoken to Bruce for five years or more. I thought we’d have the meeting and that it wouldn’t work. I thought we’d all be grown up about it, but that would be it. Then we actually had the meeting and it really changed everything. His enthusiasm was 100 per cent.”
Steve Harris
“He was, you know, a bit like, ‘I’m still not sure exactly why you left,’ sort of thing. He said it a couple of times, and then he said, ‘But that doesn’t matter now.’ And I went, ‘Oh, but it does matter!’ And so I told him, like, ‘This is why I left.’ I can’t remember exactly what I said, but at the end I said, ‘Does that make sense?’ And he went, ‘Well, yeah.’ I thought, ‘OK, that’s all right, then.'”
Bruce Dickinson
The rest of the band – Dave Murray, Janick Gers and Nicko McBrain – were called in, and the lot of them headed out for the pub to celebrate a momentous occasion in Maiden history.
Steve Harris and Bruce Dickinson had decided to reunite.
Dickinson would later recall that, “There was also the question of how to handle Adrian’s rejoining, to which Steve replied, without hesitation, ‘I always wanted three guitarists anyway.'” Harris walked out into the pub car park and phoned up Smith, and he would remember that, “I laid it all on the line. I said, ‘I want you back, ’cause it takes Maiden somewhere else, musically.'”
“Rejoining Maiden would be restarting the music of the spheres. If the universe had been frozen for a few years, I felt we could walk through the walls of ice and into a world of fire and passion. I knew that we could be so much more now than we could ever have been before.”
Bruce Dickinson
Iron Maiden 1999: Dave Murray, Janick Gers, Nicko McBrain, Bruce Dickinson, Steve Harris, Adrian Smith.
Dickinson found that a clearing of the air was fundamentally important in going forward. After the upheaval of his painful exit from the band in 1993, he was well aware that wounds needed healing. “It would have been silly to have continued with any bad feelings,” he said a couple of years later. “The two people that were the most upset with me were Nicko and Steve. And I suppose I’ve discovered Steve’s sense of humor for the first time, really. In some ways, Steve and I are more similar than either of us would probably care to admit.”
McBrain recently gave some further insight into the honest clearing of the air that started at the 1998 meeting at Smallwood’s place. The celebratory pub visit in Brighton would continue in London in the evening, when some of them got back there together, as Nicko told TVMaldita:
“And I remember standing in the bar with Bruce, and I put my arm around him and I said, ‘You know I love you, mate.’ He said, ‘I love you too, Nick.’ And I said, ‘But I’ll tell you what: I can’t change what I felt and what I said about what happened.’ And he looked me in the eye, looked up at me actually [laughs], ‘I know, Nick.’ And so we made our peace. I think he said, ‘We won’t talk about this again.’ And we never have.”
Nicko McBrain
The remainder of 1998 would be spent finishing their respective tours while keeping the reunion news under wraps. Bayley has indicated this orchestration through his two different accounts of the events. In Maiden’s official biography by Mick Wall, he states that he came into the office in January 1999 and was told to leave the band. Blaze asked Smallwood “if that meant Bruce was coming back”, and says he got a non-committal answer, that “nothing had been sorted out yet.” However, in Lawrence Paterson’s official Bayley biography, the ex-Maiden singer says that Smallwood’s answer had actually been “Yes.”
Iron Maiden did not fire Blaze Bayley before figuring out what to do, without a firm plan for what would come. Maiden’s situation was dire, as Steve Harris himself would later admit:
“In many parts of the world we were still very strong. But it’s true that in Britain and America we’d lost fans. And we had to do something to get them back.”
Steve Harris
What that “something” would be was never really in question.
The groundwork for Iron Maiden’s return to prominence in 1999 and 2000 was actually being laid at the end of 1998. The strange vibe that Bayley felt at the end of the tour wasn’t just from the fact that the band wanted him out, but that they had decided to get his predecessor back in. Harris would later say that, “Bruce was really irreplaceable.” And not only did Maiden switch back from Bayley to Dickinson, but Harris also directed the realization of an old dream: a three-guitar line-up.
THE THREE AMIGOS
Back in the 1970s, Steve Harris had wanted to expand the early Iron Maiden line-up beyond two guitars. It never worked out at that time, but as 1999 dawned he took another stab at it.
“At first, I thought that Jan and I would do half a set each or something. But Steve came up with this mad idea. He suggested to them to have three guitarists. I’d like to have been in the room when he said that.”
Adrian Smith
When Adrian Smith accepted the invitation to rejoin Maiden along with Bruce Dickinson, there came a period of nervous uncertainty for both him and the man who had replaced him in 1990, Janick Gers. In fact, Janick offered to resign from the band on several occasions. When Rod Smallwood had broken the news to Gers and Nicko McBrain, in that sake bar in Tokyo, Gers had reportedly said, “Three guitars? I don’t get that. I’ll step down.” But Smallwood had gotten the three-guitar pitch from Steve Harris and told him he wasn’t going anywhere.
McBrain, for his part, did not like the idea initially.
“I said to Rod, ‘If that’s the case, then are you going to take less commission so we can afford to pay for another fella?’ And that went down like a fart in a two-man submarine. So I went to see Steve, and said, ‘I’ve heard about Adrian and I don’t think it’s a good idea.’ But Steve looked at me and said, ‘Think about it. It’s dangerous! We’ll be able to recreate live all the stuff we’ve recorded on albums with lots of overdubs.’ And the more I thought about it, the more I realised I hadn’t been thinking about the bigger picture.”
Nicko McBrain
After the subsequent meeting with Dickinson confirmed that the reunion would happen and Smith would come back too, Gers was still unsure and later recalled to Rock Candy magazine that he received a visit from his boss:
“I thought to myself, ‘Well, I could go.’ And I was genuinely thinking that maybe I should leave. Maybe I was thinking that there was no need for three guitars in Iron Maiden. But Steve came to see me and he said, ‘If you go, then we’re back to Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, and if Bruce comes back but Adrian doesn’t come back, then we’re at Fear Of The Dark. But if you stay and Adrian comes back, then we’re going somewhere else, somewhere new.’ That convinced me to at least give it a go, so I said fine.”
Janick Gers
Janick Gers, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith have been the Maiden guitar team since 1999.
Gers’ offer to step down speaks volumes about his lack of ego. Indeed, as Smallwood would later say about the three-guitar team, quickly labeled The Three Amigos, “Their combined ego is zero.” As an example of this non-ego approach to redressing the Maiden sound, Smith wasted no time slotting in with his old sparring partner and also trying to facilitate his successor:
“Because Dave is one of my oldest friends — we’ve worked together for years — we know the score. Janick is a lovely guy. But I have to say Jan wasn’t going to change what he was going to play. He’s just very set in his ways. I sensed that immediately, so I started looking at different ways of doing things. When we first joined up, we played Wrathchild, I played it in drop-D tuning. Run To The Hills was in D, so again, I tuned it down. It gave it a slightly different sound. I was bringing that in, playing lower octaves on the harmonies and stuff like that.”
Adrian Smith
Steve Harris was adamant that this was the opportunity he had waited for, to have an Iron Maiden line-up with three guitarists, something that would enable the band to perform their material live in a way that more closely resembled the sometimes intricate arrangements of the album versions. When he first suggested to Smallwood that Smith should follow Dickinson back to Maiden, the manager asked if that meant Gers should go.
“I said, ‘No, I don’t want Janick to go. But why don’t we have a three-guitar thing?’ When Davey first joined we were a three-guitar band. Then the other two left and we ended up bringing in other people to partner Dave. And I’ve always valued Adrian’s writing. I think maybe Maiden lost something when Adrian left. He adds a different dimension to the band.”
Steve Harris
Adrian himself would return the compliment to Steve, saying that the Maiden leader is “unorthodox in his thinking, which has always been Maiden’s greatest strength.” More than 20 years after he first envisioned it, Harris would have his three-guitar Iron Maiden line-up.
On stage, the extra guitarist would lead to the return of three-part harmonies in songs like Powerslave, as on the album version, and newly invented three-part harmonies in songs like The Trooper, unlike the album version. And as Harris points out, Iron Maiden now had more songwriters. The different dimension that Adrian Smith brings to the band would be immediately apparent when they started rehearsing and writing songs for their next album.
BACK ON TRACK
In the 1980s, Steve Harris had bought a villa in the Algarve region of Portugal. He set up his own pub nearby, predictably called Eddie’s Bar, and generally enjoyed his own peace of mind there when he escaped from the Maiden madness. When the new line-up of the band had to get ready for the 1999 tour, as well as write a bit for their next album, this is where they headed.
It might have been an opportunity to fix memories too, since the previous time the band had rehearsed there was ahead of the 1993 tour that seemed to be Dickinson’s last. Back then, it was complete gloom. This time, it was a case of shaking loose and proving to themselves that the new band could be the best Iron Maiden ever.
The final dates for the Bruce Dickinson band were done in Brazil in April 1999, immortalized on the Scream For Me Brazil (1999) live album, and then Bruce and Adrian joined the rest of Maiden in Portugal.
“Steve had a house in Faro, Portugal, and we all decamped to holiday villas and apartments in a tourist colony to live together and write. Janick and I shivered under piles of overcoats at night. Golf was on the agenda, mainly because it was almost free, and also because other than drinking in the deserted local pub, life outside of songwriting was desperately boring.”
Bruce Dickinson
Iron Maiden in Portugal in spring 1999, visiting Steve Harris’ own Eddie’s Bar in-between sessions of writing new music and rehearsing for the upcoming tour.
The band set up in a warehouse, or possibly a defunct aircraft hangar, standing around in a circle and nervously feeling their way in the process of being a brand new six-man Iron Maiden.
“We were all standing and looking at each other, and someone said, ‘Anyone got any ideas?’ So I said, ‘I’ve got a riff.’ I had The Wicker Man, and we started playing it, and it just clicked.”
Adrian Smith
“We all just threw ourselves into it,” Dickinson would recall. “That was when stuff like The Fallen Angel and Ghost Of The Navigator came up.” The business of writing the new Maiden album was off to a good start, and the band were planning to record right after the end of the upcoming tour, in November and December 1999. On the way there, they were going to prove to the world how good they could be on stage.
“I don’t think we ever doubted our own abilities for a second, but it wasn’t until we did actually get up and have a play together in Portugal that it really hit home to us how right this was. It was so good to be all together again.”
Bruce Dickinson
Smith acknowledged that the personalities in the band still carried the potential for conflict that had always been there in the 1980s, but insisted that each member’s personal maturation also made for a much better dynamic in this second go-around. Rehearsals for the tour were more enjoyable than in the past, as he explained in the official Maiden biography:
“I’ve come back with a different perspective. There were some disagreements, but it turned out to be a positive thing. Opinions differed on the tempos of certain songs. But, whereas before we might have brushed them under the carpet, this time we faced up to them and resolved them. Everyone was happy and nobody was left brooding in the corner.”
Adrian Smith
To be sure, there seemed to be a new sense of brotherhood and cameraderie about the reformed Iron Maiden, a shared feeling of gratitude for the adventure that they made possible for each other. And this collective state of mind would also translate to the stage.
The Ed Hunter Tour of 1999 was short by Maiden standards, basically teasing the future potential of the new line-up with four weeks in North America and three weeks in Europe. The reception was intense, as this writer can testify from seeing them in Stockholm on 17 September, an electric roar greeting the opening of Aces High, and another roar (mixed with joyous relief) greeting the returning Dickinson when he ran out on stage to grab the mic.
There was zero doubt that Maiden had turned their own fortunes around completely in the space of less than a year. For the fans, 1998 already seemed like a lifetime ago. Indeed, the vibe in and around Maiden was so positive and energetic in 1999 that many observers couldn’t help but wonder if it was real or not. Journalist Dave Ling spent some time with the band in the USA and asked a seemingly happy Dickinson, who also flew some of the band and crew between shows in a twin-prop Cessna plane, if it had been hard to bury that hatchet?
“Honestly, no. All these things have resolved themselves. We’re actually talking to each other now. We’re having real conversations about things that matter. Sure, it can get a bit lively at times, but constructive argument is a good thing because it shows that people care.”
Bruce Dickinson
Harris would be equally pleased with the way things were going, stating in the official biography that, “It just feels right, at this point. […] We get on now a lot better personally, too.” Everyone who peeked behind the scenes of the 1999 tour would report a warm atmosphere between Dickinson and Harris, often to the observers’ surprise. And the magic on stage was undeniable.
Iron Maiden returned in 1999, with Adrian Smith and Bruce Dickinson, on the Ed Hunter Tour.
Seeing Bruce back on stage with Maiden, one was struck by how right it was. This was quite simply the right singer in the right band. And he clearly relished being back on a big stage, much bigger than he could ever find with his solo music. Club tours? “I can’t say I would mind giving that up,” Dickinson admitted. “It’s like performing in a jam jar. You feel like an angry wasp.”
Dickinson was built for the kind of show and audience that Maiden provided, and the 1999 tour was a triumph. Songs like Aces High, Wasted Years, Powerslave and Run To The Hills had not been performed in ages, while Dickinson also delivered excellent renditions of Blaze era tracks like The Clansman. Somewhat ironically, the Paul Di’Anno era tunes Killers and Phantom Of The Opera were also returned to the set, songs that might have given Blaze an easier time than most Dickinson era tracks, had he ever gotten to sing them…
Safe in the knowledge that the new line-up worked, that their fans had welcomed them enthusiastically, and armed with a bunch of new songs, Iron Maiden then set about creating their comeback album.
IN A BRAVE NEW WORLD
A major reason why Bruce Dickinson left Iron Maiden in 1993 was his frustration that their albums were written in a conservative manner and recorded in Steve Harris’ own studio in England. In other words, these must have been points he would not concede upon his return to the band in 1999, so how were Maiden going to make a new record?
“When we had our initial get-together – myself, Steve and the band – my concern was, how did I know we were gonna make this great record? And Steve immediately said, ‘Well, I think we need a producer, and I don’t think we can do it in the same studio. We’ve got to do it in a state-of-the-art studio, the best studio we can possibly get.’ By which point you could have picked me up off the floor!”
Bruce Dickinson
A lot of Maiden fans would obviously hope that the producer in question would be Martin Birch, responsible for nearly all of their great work in the 1980s, but this was not to be. Birch was retired, spending his days outdoors on golf courses and such, and was never going to be tempted to return to the darkness of the recording studio. At the time of making the choice, Rod Smallwood said that, “The band definitely see this as a chance for something fresh.”
The band talked to several potential producers and decided on Kevin Shirley, at the time best known for having produced Silverchair, The Black Crowes, Aerosmith and Dream Theater.
“I had really liked the stuff he had done before. And then when we had a meeting with him, it was just the vibe and the way he does things and the way he talks about stuff, it was great.”
Steve Harris
Maiden liked Shirley’s easy-going manner and the way he described his intentions for the work ahead, and offered him the producer’s chair for their 2000 reunion album to be recorded at the end of 1999. But Shirley was not initially convinced he should take the job, as he would later tell Metal Hammer magazine:
“To be honest, when I got the call I was less enthusiastic than I should have been, because it appeared to me that they were a band that had maybe lost their way. I was concerned because I’d had a look at where they’d been and the trajectory of the albums. It seemed like there was a pattern emerging and it didn’t look good.”
Kevin Shirley
In other words, Shirley had the same apprehension about Maiden that Dickinson originally had. The years of home-made albums produced by Steve Harris in the 1990s had created the impression of a band unwilling to do the work that would distinguish their records the way they had done in the 1980s.
But Shirley did accept the challenge, and maintains to this day that a challenge it was: “They were a band that were really on their knees when we went in to record Brave New World.” Yes, there was the album title, taken from a new track with music by Murray and Harris, and lyrics by an Aldous Huxley-inspired Dickinson.
Another right man for the job: Producer Kevin Shirley where he can usually be found.
Iron Maiden entered Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris, France with Kevin Shirley in November 1999. The producer had picked the studio because it was a converted movie theater, which means that it had plenty of space and a high ceiling, suitable for working up good acoustics. Shirley also suggested a change to the Maiden recording method, which was actually a throwback to their first album with Birch, Killers in 1981.
“I could see how there was this intangible energy you’d get, just from having musicians playing together. So I was dead keen on Maiden doing that. Steve, in particular, was very hesitant about it.”
Kevin Shirley
Being set in his established way of recording Maiden piece by piece in his own Barnyard Studios in England, Harris reluctantly allowed his new producer to give it a shot. Maiden set up together and played their new songs live, everything being recorded and potentially kept, with overdubs of guitars and vocals to follow as needed. Sparks were flying, the vibe was thick, and Harris turned to Shirley and said, “I never want to work another way again!”
Dickinson was also enthusiastic about this way of working, sensing that it created an energy you can never replicate alone in a room while playing or singing to a backing track already recorded: “I could do my vocals completely live and be separated from all the racket. We rehearsed all the songs up as if we were gonna go and do a gig, and then we did a gig, basically, for each song, but in the studio.”
Some of Iron Maiden’s fans have been continuously critical of this live aesthetic in their album productions ever since 2000, claiming that the records sound too unpolished. For this writer, such a notion is hard to fathom in light of the immense leap of sound that took place from Virtual XI in 1998 to Brave New World in 2000. Their first of six studio records with Shirley, Brave New World was all that the title implied: Better songs, better performances, better production, better times.
Smith remembers the first tentative steps involved in creating not only a new Maiden album but also a whole new way for Maiden to be working in the studio:
“The first few days of recording were a little tense, to be honest. Was this going to even work? Three guitarists? Also, our new producer, Kevin Shirley, was trying to establish his authority, so there was a bit of ‘cock fighting’ going on. After a while, though, things settled down. I think the first thing we recorded was The Wicker Man. […] We did several takes of the song, then all trooped into the control room to have a listen. […] We were all knocked out with what we heard. The drums sounded huge and the guitars sounded powerful. We knew then that things were going to work.”
Adrian Smith
Perhaps an underrated aspect of Shirley’s work as Maiden’s producer is the way he has facilitated a six-man band from their 40s to their 60s, with very little to prove as the years went by, and helped them create six new records of music along the way, even managing to placate the band’s three wills: Harris, Dickinson and Smith. Whatever you think of Shirley’s productions, they have certainly played a major part in Iron Maiden’s longevity, helping to keep them happy and together and productive for much longer than anyone had the right to expect.
Iron Maiden in 2000, shot by Dean Karr for the Brave New World album and The Wicker Man video.
As for Shirley’s view of his responsibilities, he has stated in later years that it would be folly for someone to come in and presume to change Maiden in this direction or that. In many ways, he seems to share the late Martin Birch’s intention of simply holding up a mirror to the band.
“Maiden is just different – you can’t change Maiden. I tried to introduce new elements, like the orchestra in Blood Brothers, to give things a very grand feel. But you can’t say, ‘Look, I think gallops are passé! Let’s go with something else…’, because that’s what Maiden is.”
Kevin Shirley
And creating the first Maiden album of the 2000s was a collaborative effort. The band not only played together in the studio, but the songs were also written in collaboration to the largest extent since Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son in 1988. Only one track, Blood Brothers, was written by Harris alone. The band leader co-wrote songs with all three guitarists, and some of them included Dickinson’s contributions as well. Bits of The Mercenary, Dream Of Mirrors and The Nomad were left over from Blaze’s time in the band, but most of the material was brand new.
“It was a band finding their feet in the studio again,” remembers Shirley, “finding that natural chemistry.” So they did. Brave New World was released to critical fanfare in May 2000, and Iron Maiden were soon back on the road with the Brave New World Tour that would stretch through the year and into early 2001.
Iron Maiden live on the Brave New World Tour in 2000-2001.
The new production was easily Maiden’s biggest since the Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son show in 1988. There was a conservative amount of pyro, but the set design and the Wicker Man Eddie was more eye-catching than anything they had done in a long time, particularly when the local Wicker virgins dragged Bruce into the burning Wicker Man at the climax of Iron Maiden.
“I was lucky to survive intact in Norway. The female stagehands were somewhat robust and took their sacrificial duty rather too seriously. I emerged with bite marks and scratches, which looked like I’d had an argument with a barbed-wire fence.”
Bruce Dickinson
In contrast to the 1999 reunion tour, the new setlist was light on nostalgia. It featured six songs from the new album, kicking off with a rousing The Wicker Man, and also made space for the recent Blaze era tracks The Clansman and Sign Of The Cross. The older material in the set was fairly inescapable staples like 2 Minutes To Midnight, The Number Of The Beast and Hallowed Be Thy Name. Some fans bemoaned the lack of one or two deeper cuts, but this complaint would be adressed very satisfactorily on tours to come.
A European leg in June and July was followed by the longest North American leg that Maiden had done since the 1991 No Prayer On The Road tour. And while that tour had skirted around New York City, the 2000 expedition landed at the prestigious Madison Square Garden on 5 August, a clear sign that the reformed Maiden were commercially stronger than any incarnation of the band since the 1980s.
“Maiden had nailed it. Brave New World was not just an album title, it was now our very existence.”
Bruce Dickinson
The tour ended triumphantly at Rock In Rio in Brazil on 19 January 2001, one of Maiden’s biggest gigs ever with about 250 000 people attending. Rod Smallwood would later claim that this is one of the very best Iron Maiden concerts he has ever witnessed, and it doubtlessly brought home the power of the reformed line-up:
To add to the performance pressure, the show was preserved for posterity on the 2002 Rock In Rio live album and DVD. Kevin Shirley was in charge of mixing the sound, while Steve Harris reluctantly had to step up in the editing. The early edits done by director Dean Karr and his team were, according to Steve and Kevin, in disastrous shape.
“I was pretty burnt out and ready for time off, but it just didn’t look right. Some of the shots they were using were just bizarre too, like deliberately out-of-focus shots of the lighting rig! […] The reason I didn’t offer to do it in the first place was because I specifically didn’t want to. I was after someone else’s input and direction over my style.”
Steve Harris
The Brave New World period brought Steve and Bruce closer than they had ever been on a personal level.
But ‘Arry knuckled down to work and spent about seven months getting the DVD into shape. And so the Iron Maiden reunion cycle ended with another irony: Bruce Dickinson applauding Steve Harris’ editing of a concert video, something he had earlier wanted Harris to stop doing.
“In the process he taught himself incredibly complex digital editing systems. He taught himself software that people take year-long courses to learn, and I give him total respect for that.”
Bruce Dickinson
A fitting coda.
THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS
For the first time since recording Virtual XI in the latter half of 1997, Iron Maiden were set for an extended break from activity in 2001 and 2002. As soon as the live album and DVD were in the can, Bruce said, “Steve’s made it very clear that he wants a complete twelve-month break.”
While the members of Iron Maiden were taking a well-earned rest and recharging their batteries, there were a couple of releases to fill the gap in activity. The first was the less-than-interesting compilation album Edward The Great in November 2002. The only note-worthy novelty on this release was the inclusion of Bruce and Adrian’s American hit off Piece Of Mind (1983), Flight Of Icarus, which had been so stubbornly absent from the previous collection Best Of The Beast in 1996.
The other release in November 2002 was Eddie’s Archive, a box set of three double CDs that charted Maiden’s history in the form of B-sides, rare performances from the BBC archives, and a full presentation of the 1982 Hammersmith concert in London, now to be known as Beast Over Hammersmith. This box was much more interesting to the dedicated fan, and an early glimpse of what is hopefully on the horizon when Maiden inevitably decide to open their vaults with the type of massive reissues that all legacy bands do these days.
Clive Burr with Iron Maiden in March 2002.
One important break from taking a break came in March 2002, when Iron Maiden performed three nights at London’s Brixton Academy to raise funds for their ex-drummer Clive Burr. It had recently become known that Clive was suffering from an aggressive form of Multiple Sclerosis, and Maiden flew in from around the world to set up Clive Aid.
“For me it was, ‘Tell me when and where and I’ll be there.’ There was never any question of us not doing it once it was raised as a possibility. It’s looking after one of your own, and that’s important. I remember being backstage before the first gig with Clive and we were just swapping memories like it was yesterday.”
Dave Murray
In late 2002, Iron Maiden finally moved on to their next album project. Material was worked up by many different combinations of songwriters, as on the previous album, and the record would take its title from a song that Janick Gers and Steve Harris collaborated on: Dance Of Death. Retaining producer Kevin Shirley was a no-brainer, but this time the band opted to record in London’s SARM Studios in Notting Hill in early 2003.
Gers was rightfully proud of the title track, his original idea for the song coming from Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal. Harris turned the idea into an old-fashioned horror story that gave Gers shivers: “It’s that old sea dog telling horror tales back in the days when people didn’t have computers or TV, when they would get together and tell stories to frighten each other.”
Iron Maiden in 2003, photographed by Simon Fowler, ready to launch Dance Of Death.
The best moment on the album is Adrian Smith’s first stab at writing the patented Iron Maiden epic. Featuring haunting lyrics by Steve Harris, Paschendale stands tall as one of the best songs Maiden ever recorded, quite an achievement thirteen albums into their career. It would be a dramatic centerpiece of the following tour:
Dance Of Death was the album that proved the reformed Maiden was here to stay, and the 2005 live album and concert video Death On The Road simply reinforced the point. Paschendale in particular, both on record and on stage, showcases all the confidence and ability of the six-man Iron Maiden line-up, and also how well they were getting on with their producer by the time of their second album together.
“When Martin left we were at a bit of a loss really, and I think that to replace someone that you’ve worked with on that many albums is very, very hard. But in Kevin I think we finally have found that person.”
Steve Harris
The complete integration of Maiden as a music machine at this point was underlined by the fact that drummer Nicko McBrain got his first, and only ever, proper songwriting credit on the track New Frontier, co-writing with Smith and Dickinson. On the one hand, it was obvious that Maiden’s creativity was peaking. On the other hand, some tracks might have been better left off the album in the interest of cohesion.
In the summer of 2003, Maiden broke routine by touring ahead of the new album’s release in September. From late May until late August they traveled through Europe and North America on a trek named Give Me Ed ‘Til I’m Dead, premiering only the new track Wildest Dreams but digging out some deeper cuts: Die With Your Boots On, Revelations, 22 Acacia Avenue and Bring Your Daughter…To The Slaughter had not been performed in ages. When the proper album tour got underway in the fall, Can I Play With Madness and Lord Of The Flies would be surprises in an otherwise Dance Of Death-centric setlist.
Maiden taking a bow on the Give Me Ed ‘Til I’m Dead summer tour in 2003.
A new kind of touring cycle was now being established. Maiden, and possibly Dickinson in particular, sensed that there was adventure to be had by alternating album tours and history tours. Iron Maiden had reached a point where their massive catalog could be utilized to sell a tour without the need for a new album.
Eddie as Death, on the Dance Of Death World Tour in 2003-04.
This approach to touring would be central to Maiden’s activities in 2005 and beyond. At the end of 2004 they released their first retrospective DVD, The Early Days, which they would use as set-up for a 2005 period tour featuring material only from their first four studio albums. Down the road there would be DVD reissues of Live After Death (1985) and Maiden England (1989) that were ideal for building productions and setlists around. New albums could be issued at intervals of approximately four years, and tour concepts could alternate between the old and the new.
All of this would have been unthinkable with the previous line-up of the band. The return of Dickinson in particular, but also the addition of Smith to the ranks, was essential in rebuilding Maiden’s immediate popularity. It also proved to be decisive in enabling Maiden to vary their setlists and heighten the quality of their records, something that in turn would be the very platform for their longevity.
Bruce surveys stage and crowd, live on the Dance Of Death World Tour.
If Brave New World was lightning in a bottle, Dance Of Death proved that it was not a fluke. Maiden could make solid new albums if and when they wanted to. Their future was secured, particularly when the public interest in their history tours was taken into account. What a difference it all made.
Both Harris and Dickinson have at times seemed genuinely surprised that they got back together. They have both described the other as a changed man. And they are both probably right.
Dickinson left the safe harbor of Maiden to take risks and explore his art, struggling through Balls To Picasso and Skunkworks before concluding that heavy metal is very much his thing. Harris, for his part, struggled through a lean run with Maiden on The X Factor and Virtual XI, and also divorced his wife and lost his father during that same period. “I think we’ve grown up,” Harris would reflect, “on both sides of the fence.”
The fact that the 1999 line-up of the band is still together, going strong and releasing their sixth studio album in 2021, speaks volumes about how right it was for Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith to rejoin Iron Maiden. 24 years and counting without a line-up change is a Maiden record by extremely far.
When the Dance Of Death tour concluded in Japan in February 2004, Iron Maiden were in for another year-long break from touring and recording. But there was no end in sight for the revitalised band: In late 2004 they would release the Early Days DVD that provided the concept for their 2005 tour, and beyond that they would record and release A Matter Of Life And Death (2006) and continue to build their reputation and drawing power into a second golden age, or as Adrian Smith put it, “A second bite of the cherry.”
Sources: Kerrang! (Issue 487, 26 March 1994), Metal Hammer (June 1994), Run to the Hills: The Authorised Biography of Iron Maiden (Mick Wall [1998] 2004), “Bruce Don’t Bullshit” (Adrian Bromley, 1 October 1998), Bruce Dickinson Interview (The Bruce Dickinson Wellbeing Network, 31 October 1998), Metal Hammer (Dave Ling, September 1999), Metal Hammer presents “Iron Maiden: 30 Years of Metal Mayhem” (edited by Joel McIver, 2005), Iron Maiden: 30 Years of the Beast (Paul Stenning 2006), At the End of the Day: The Story of the Blaze Bayley Band (Lawrence Paterson 2010), “Adrian Smith, as known by Bruce Dickinson” (ironmaiden.com 2011), “Iron Maiden: Hope and Glory” (Paul Elliott, 25 May 2011), Bruce Dickinson: Maiden Voyage (Joe Shooman [2007] 2016), What Does This Button Do? (Bruce Dickinson 2017), Nicko McBrain Interview (Classic Rock Issue 257, 2018), Rock Candy (issue 8, June-July 2018), Classic Rock Platinum Series and Metal Hammer present “Iron Maiden” (edited by Dave Everley, May 2019), Adrian Smith Interview (Talk Is Jericho, February 2020), Rock Candy (issue 19, April-May 2020), Nicko McBrain Interview (TVMaldita, July 2020), Adrian Smith Interview (Eon Music, August 2020), Adrian Smith Interview (Planet Rock, August 2020), Monsters of River and Rock: My Life as Iron Maiden’s Compulsive Angler (Adrian Smith 2020), “21 Years Ago: Iron Maiden Release Brave New World“ (Loudwire, 29 May 2021), Rick Allen Interview (Eon Music, June 2021), Blaze Bayley Interview (Rolling Stone, 12 August 2022).
Maiden Revelations 
Wonderful article. “Indeed, as Smallwood would later say about the three-guitar team, quickly labeled The Three Amigos, “Their combined ego is zero.”” – The harmony between these three is an absolute integral (and maybe sometimes overlooked) reason for Maiden’s longevity.
That’s a good point!
Great stuff, Christer!
Thanks, Ross!
I think that the potential of bigger and better things with three guitars has gone unfulfilled. Given what Maiden had done on Powerslave, with some songs (e.g., “The Duelist”) featuring four or more guitar tracks played at the same time, nothing they have done since the reunion has ever come close to that level of intricacy. Instead, Maiden overall went from being a heavy metal band that composed songs with ambitious and complex guitar arrangements, to a hard rock band that focused more on overall feel than complexity, negating the rationale for a three-guitar band.
Agreed. The three guitars on the studio albums have been underwhelming. They seem to be used a bit better on the live recordings on certain songs, such as Revelations, The Book of Souls, Dance of Death, and The Trooper.
Part of the issue is Steve. His intricate bass lines were as important as the duelling (sorry!) twin guitars of old, but with three guitarists he doesn’t have to do so much to fill out the sound.
Although I have recently come to a more appreciative understanding of Kevin Shirley’s positive impact in the great scheme of things, which is well explained in the above article, the details of his work with Maiden continue to frustrate me. Listening to “The Writing on the Wall” for the first time, I was again disappointed, thinking to myself, “Great! Another folksy Maiden tune with Bruce’s vocals buried in the mix.” In addition to that complaint, some other fans have also noted that Bruce’s vocals also sound muffled on the track. This is unfortunate, as one can imagine how good Bruce’s vocals would have sounded in a better mix. I am very critical of Bruce’s voice on Nights of the Dead, but his voice and singing are great on the new single.
It is puzzling how a producer of a band as huge as Iron Maiden can manage to bungle one of the band’s most valuable assets—Bruce Dickinson’s voice—so badly, and this wouldn’t be the only time he has done this with Bruce’s vocals. The irony is even bigger if one considers that Kevin often points out how recording is not rocket science, given all the great technology we have and today’s microphones that are so good at capturing the source clearly and faithfully, and how all you need to do is, just place the microphone in front of the source and done.
If you haven’t done so, listen to the mix on Spotify. Much clearer vocals than youtube. It’s night and day.
Yeah, like Bill P. says, the mix is ruined in the video, possibly due to the video sound effects that have been added throughout the song.
It seems very sensitive to playback eq. I played it from my phone to a Bluetooth speaker, and Android had helpfully applied some kind of enhancing eq thing. Bruce was basically inaudible. I turned that “enhancement” off and he was back at the front of the mix.
Yes, I’ve had that sort of thing happen too, particularly when masters are not overly compressed, and certainly the modern-day Maiden masters aren’t.
I checked it out on Apple Music and it was the same in terms of volume levels. Bruce’s voice needs to be pushed up a little more in the mix, but Kevin Shirley insists on a more hard rock/radio rock approach to mixing vocals. I am not a fan of his approach, but it is his creative decision.
Then we have very different ears. The mix sounds great to me on Spotify, but the YouTube version does have problems.
@ Christer Bakke Andresen
Now that Senjutsu is out, we can see what the rest of both casual and die-hard fans think of the production. People almost unanimously agree that the mix is terrible and that Bruce’s vocals are drowned and sound like they were recorded in a closet. The Youtuber NeoGeofanatic has done a great review discussing the production and Kevin Shirley. He went so far as to argue that Kevin Shirley is “the cancer of Maiden” and that the poor mixing quality on Senjutsu should be a scandal for a band as huge as Maiden.
I agree with him that the recurring low production quality is truly scandalous for a band of Maiden’s size and importance, but the real cancer of Maiden is actually Janick Gers. His arrival in 1990 lead to the biggest drop in songwriting quality with No Prayer for the Dying, an album that is often cited as possibly Maiden’s worst album ever. As for the New World of Maiden, it began with an increase in Janick’s influence on the instrumentation and overall stylistic choices, and was irrevocably marred by a producer whose first contribution raised some doubts, and whose successive work only confirmed the initial suspicion that there was a growing problem on the production side.
Yes, the streaming platform version is a lot better. I love the song! can’t wait for Senjutsu…
After getting the album on CD, I have to revise my previous position on the mixing of Bruce’s vocals. They are a bit lower in the mix than on the Birch productions, but only slightly so and not to the extent that they are in the compressed YouTube files, which squash the vocals pretty badly. Only “The Darkest Hour” has a noticeable issue with vocals being too low in the mix, but everything else on the CD sounds great. Great job by Kevin Shirley on the production. This is his best work with Maiden so far. Also great job by Maiden on the compositions. Senjutsu is a modern Maiden classic. I can’t wait for the review of it on here.
Glad to hear you enjoy it, Seventh Son! I have to say that Senjutsu seems on course to become my favorite of the post-reunion albums, possibly surpassing A Matter Of Life And Death. And I think Bruce’s performance throughout is insane. I would rank this as one of his best album performances ever, alongside Piece Of Mind and The Chemical Wedding. That he was 60 when singing this is simply unbelievable.
I went to ‘An Evening With Bruce Dickinson’ in Salford (v. entertaining) and TWOTW video was shown on the big screen before the interval. Bruce described it as being the full sound effects version not on YT (or something like that). I didn’t really notice any extra sound effects and Bruce’s vocal was still low in the mix but, played at full blast, everything else about the song sounded much more traditionally ‘Maidenish’ and heavy. However, it was so loud that the sound started to distort. My wrecked ears (still ringing from my first Maiden gig in 1990) can’t take that kind of volume. It makes you wonder about the state of Bruce et al’s hearing and how that affects the production of more recent albums. The solo material played over the PA at lower volume before the show and during the interval sounded much better.
Very good point, Ross. I think Nights Of The Dead proves that the state of Harris’ hearing is really bad. He never took care of his ears, admits to feeling physical pain in them on stage in the 1980s, and to this day he does nothing to protect them when he’s playing live. I’m sure this plays into it when it comes to mixing Maiden records with Shirley, but when he does it with Newton it really shows.
Great recap and read. Well Done!
Thanks, deKE!
What a fun read! I really enjoyed that. Looking forward to the next installment!
Thanks, Jim!
Hello!
First of all congratulations for the quality of the work and very well documented.
I am surprised to read in this article that in approximately two years, Bruce has almost squandered his fortune to be a solo artist? Maybe I’m just imagining things, but I thought the band members would be well off, even if making an album is expensive. Congrats again for the quality of the articles on your site. Pierre
Thanks, Pierre! Oh, he would probably have been fine, but it is true that at a certain point he had to start paying for his 1993-94 album productions out of his own pocket. 🙂
Yeah that puzzled me aswell, ’cause he often mentioned it in interviews.
“The record company advance went about half-way through the second one, so from then on basically I was spending all the money that I had saved up from the whole Iron Maiden thing!”
If I get that correctly he basically had to pay the final third album recording and at least a good chunk of the second attempt out of his own pocket – it probably left quite a hole in his bank account, which neither Balls to Picasso sales or Skunkworks sales were anywhere close to fill. So he’d likely just did the math and calculated that if he continues to record albums on his own, he’d loose money. Taking on a day job would have helped him remain his fortune – I mean he was still getting Maiden royalties and surely hadn’t spend everything – and he would just have been better off financially.
Thank you Christer for your insightful research and analysis once again! I have always been very interested to learn more about the reunion and it’s background especially as the official sources tend to either contradict or downplay some of the events. Keep up the great work and up the irons!
Thanks, Prisoner!
Thank you for a fantastic, well researched and well written article. Have you ever considered compiling all of these into a book? I for one would buy it, as it would be one of the most complete and unbiased Maiden biographies/retrospectives on the market.
Thank you very much, BadMeeple! The book idea is worth considering, I think.
Having read a bunch of the existing books on Maiden, I can say that none are as well-written or well-researched as this series.
Thanks, Peter! Very kind words.
Great article and very well written. There’s not many music sites in the level of Maidenrevelations.com. However, one thing crossed my mind. Isn’t New Frontier actually McBrain’s second songwriting credit as Sheriff of Huddersfield was credited to Iron Maiden?
Thanks, Shadowstone! Yeah, you’re right indeed, technically Nicko was credited for Sheriff. But I doubt that his contribution was anything other than being there to play drums. 🙂
Nicko also has a credit for “Mission from Arry”.
I could well imagine Nicko coming up with some of the lyrics to sheriff, but either way that’s not an album track, and New Frontier is the first thing he has a credit for that’s not a joke.
Re getting geeky on nicko’s songwriting credits I’m fairly sure he’s got one for nodding donkey blues off the be quick or be dead single as well (or it was possibly credited to the whole band) but agree with zomboid it was hardly a lead off single from the album! It might have been worth a place on the album ahead of weekend warrior though
As always brilliantly insightful article and informed and entertaining chat BTL – great effort christer!
Thanks, Dave Voss!
Great article!!!
Thanks, Njassa!
I agree with the comment suggesting compiling all of the “Maiden History”-texts into a book. I would definitely buy it. It´s so well researched and interesting.
Thank you for an excellent article!
I was born in the mid 90’s, and for a long time, the reunion era- Maiden was all that i knew of. Obviously I knew about some of the most popular songs from the 80’s (like Run to the hills), but my fascination for Iron Maiden came from the success of the reunion that brought them back to selling out large venues again. Kids at my school showed up in Eddie-shirts, which made me buy the live DVD Rock in Rio.
Maybe, if they would have decided to keep going with the same band that made Virtual XI, I wouldn’t have been that into them as I am today…
Thank you, Majsan!
Yes, it’d be great to have these articles collected together in a book, Christer. There’s a real need for critical analysis of the band’s output and probing of the official history, especially now, that having attained national treasure status, there is a tendency to uncritical treatment across the board (cf. the gushing mainstream press reviews of Senjutsu, even in the likes of the Guardian).
It is fascinating to consider that the reunion might have been effected on Bruce’s day off before the start of the British leg of the CW tour. Another aspect of the reunion that intrigues me is the lack of a British date on the ‘Ed Huntour’. It’s been suggested on Maidenfans that this was a tax avoidance issue connected with the $30m bond deal the band entered into in 1998. Sounds feasible, but I don’t know anything about the band’s business/tax/residency arrangements and if that was the case, why didn’t they fall back on a bland excuse like ‘we’d love to but… we couldn’t book suitable venues/whatever’? Bruce’s statements in Kerrang, on the release of CW, and in Metal Hammer, during the Ed Hunter tour, about Britain being a bad place for metal, still strike me as bitter. I kind of understand it. In 1998, it must have been galling to play to decent-sized audiences in Europe and then attract barely 300 fans in a sub-venue in Glasgow: ‘G2’ (Garage 2) has a capacity of 350 and on the evening of Bruce’s CW show there on 30 Nov (the day after the reunion?!), tickets were still being sold on the door. (It was a *magnificent* show.)
Re. Seventh Son’s assertion that Janick is the cancer of Maiden, dear me, that’s harsh! As much as I concur with stern criticism of Janick’s recorded solos (the same old licks and tricks recycled yet again on Senjutso), his mangling of Adrian’s classic solos in concert (I still haven’t forgiven him for the off-key monstrosity in Revelations at Dublin ’05!), and his appalling guitar tone (unforgivable in a disciple of Blackmore and Gallagher), I’d argue that Janick is essential to the band. Despite not being involved in the classic era, it is Janick who most frequently harks back to those halcyon days of tight, heavy, metallic riffage and up-tempo gallops into glory (Man on the Edge, Montsegur, The Talisman, etc.). Ok, Stratego is more of a canter but that it’s relatively up-tempo and short is surely the result of Janick’s influence. If Janick wasn’t in the band, all of Senjutsu would be a plodding Wishbone-Nektar homage. As for Bruce being low and muddy in the mix, yes, quite annoying. It’s bizarre that budget NWOTHM releases sound so superior to modern Maiden. But is Bruce himself fussed about it? If he was unhappy, I imagine he’d cause merrily hell until it was changed. A poster on the Steve Hoffman forum has suggested that being low in the mix, and having Janick effectively double the vocal melody, is a crutch for any shortcomings in Bruce’s vocal. I’m not convinced by that. If Bruce is like Steve and Kevin Shirley and listens to playback at high volume, everything probably sounds much more up front and clear in the mix. I think we’ll have to wait for the next Roy Z album (no, I’m not holding my breath despite Bruce’s recent comments*) for a decent recording of Bruce’s mature voice.
* At ‘An Evening With..’ in Salford, Bruce said he had 17 songs ready. He also sang a snippet of Trumpets of Jericho and sounded rather good. I didn’t film it (d’oh!) but, if anyone’s interested, here’s a pic:
Thanks, Ross! It’s been great to hear from so many of you here that maybe a book is a good idea. Awesome pictures! 🙂 Of course that man doesn’t need a crutch to get his singing across. But I have no doubt that Senjutsu sounds like Maiden collectively want it to sound.
To be fair, I admit that the CD version of Senjutsu sounded great, not even close to the smashed vocals on YouTube. I also loved the production overall, with the buried vocals in “The Darkest Hour” being my only criticism. The album kind of has a nice sonic flavor and grit to it, if that makes sense.
I actually agree with the review by “The Guardian,” which called Senjutsu “an ambitious, eccentric masterpiece.” It’s a truly beautiful and magical album. I’ll post my review once Christer’s review is up, as I have a lot to say about the album and hope that people will appreciate my take on it.
But now onto my issue with Janick, just to explain things a little more. Janick writes songs about things or people and gives his songs bad-ass sounding titles that fail to deliver. For example, imagine you pick up a metal album, go over the track listing, and come across the title “The Mercenary.” Now, that sounds badass and “metal.” If It’s called “The Mercenary,” it’s gotta be good. Most of the time, it isn’t. It’s a bit like Judas Priest titling songs “The Sinner,” “The Sentinel,” or “The Ripper,” and then you hear the songs and go, What is this lame crap? It’s pretentious and over the top. While I’m on the topic of Judas Priest, if you need to insert the word “metal” into your lyrics and song titles (e.g., “Metal Gods,” “The Hellion”) to claim the metal throne, then you are probably trying too hard. It’s cheesy, pretentious, and Spinal Tap level of over-the-top. The only thing worse than that is Manowar.
Maiden are in a class of their own. Janick, in my opinion, has failed to “get” the band, even after over thirty years of being in it. As a result, his songs often sound a bit like a caricature of Maiden. What usually happens is that he’ll write a badass-titled song about some thing or person and construct it with very narrow verses. Then Steve, being left with so little wiggle room to work with, Slaps really cheesy lyrics onto it that lack a meaningful story and fail to create an emotional connection to the story, because there is no second or third dimension to the story, if there even is a cohesive first dimension. I mean, compare the timeless relevance and beauty of the lyrics on “Lost in a Lost World” to something like “The Time Machine” or “Stratego,” not to mention “The Alchemist” or “The Talisman.” The quality difference between Steve’s output and Janick’s output is huge. Janick’s songs gravitate toward being throw-away compositions, whereas Steve’s compositions, many of them, have enduring quality. I am not saying that Steve, Adrian, Dave, and Bruce are perfect songwriters. Every so often, they, too, produce a just-O.K. song. But for Janick, that is a recurring pattern. However, that is not to say that Janick does not have highlights. “The Legacy” is a great, haunting song and the perfect closer to A Matter of Life and Death. It’s one of Maiden’s best and most impactful post-2000 songs.
Here’s one more way to look at it. If we take “The Time Machine” as an exhibit again, consider how the song exhibits all the Janick flaws I enumerated above. It has a really cool tittle, but the story fails to amount to anything. It’s 9 minutes of someone telling us how cool the things he has seen and done are. O.K., so what are those things? Why should I care about the story if nothing more is said, other than, “Hey, I’ve done some really cool things, you can’t even begin to imagine.” And, what on earth does a “time machine” have to do with it? It’s really weird and sort of empty. It’s all calories and filler, with no substance. Musically, there are some decent ideas in the song, even though they are highly derivative of Janick’s previous compositions.
I could also go on and on criticizing his copy-and-paste solos, but I think it sounds like we abundantly agree on those, so no need to retread a well-agreed-upon point.
I’ve been waiting for a review/comments on Senjutsu and since this article is titled New World Order, I thought it appropriate to comment on Senjutsu, which is an exceptional album and the culmination and pinnacle of what the reunion era six piece band has been trying to achieve since they reformed in 2000. Senjutsu uses the best elements of the reunion era albums, with a hint of The X Factor, Bruce’s Chemical Wedding, and the occasional call back to the 1980’s and 1990’s material. Much like Seventh Son was the peak and the progression of the 1980’s discography, Senjutsu is the final progression of the post 2000 reunion era.
This album is atmospheric, dark, and brooding, but yet has an underlying tone of optimism. It’s gloomy and moody, without being depressing or overbearing. What tells me it’s a complete and great album is that the more I listen to it, I change which songs I like the best. They are all good to great, with Lost in a Lost World and The Time Machine being the “weakest”, yet both keep my attention and have interesting elements to them. I also enjoy Stratego and TWOTW more in the context of the album. They are both placed perfectly in the the line-up of tracks.
The musicianship is great. This a very guitar based album, but still with the ever present rhythm section being distinct. The guitars steal the show from the melodies, harmonies, and fantastic solos. Additionally, Bruce’s vocals are spectacular and I like the effects they used on his voice, as well as the use of multiple Bruce vocal parts layered on top one another. For me this is best produced/sounding album of the reunion era, however it gets significantly better when listening through head phones which picks up many nuisances to the songs, which are not as clear through other speaker systems.
My criticism of the album is a bit “nit picky”. Some of the songs are very wordy (almost too many lyrics) which causes Bruce to churn them out in rapid chunks and run-on sentences. But the music is so good underneath them, that it’s not that big of a deal. I must admit that seeming Steve have 3 long “epics” close the album I was a bit pessimistic, however I love all of them. And even though they are long, they are never boring or drag on, which is impressive for tracks of that length to be played in succession. With that said it’s evident that the band used parts from other albums on many of the songs, however it’s such a diverse use of them (I hear The Talisman, The Duellists, Montsegur, The Nomad, Afraid to Shoot Strangers, The Edge of Darkness, Brave New World, Lord of Light, Isle of Avalon, The Man Who Would be King, as well as the Zeppelin-esque Kashmir riff on The Parchment, to name of few of many) spanning many different albums that it’s enjoyable because it hearkens you back to another period or periods of the band. It’s also understandable to use other album’s influences when you consider the band’s long career. And lastly, I don’t like Senjutsu as the album title. I feel the album should have been called Hell on Earth, as It more clearly and accurately identifies the overall theme of the album.
When I started reading your review, I had to scroll back to the top and check the name, as it sounded almost exactly like what I would have said about it, with only two exceptions: “Lost in a Lost World” is beyond beautiful and heart-wrenching, and “Senjutsu,” the title track is an appropriate choice for the title track, as it has the mature, evocative style of all songs on the album in condensed form and it treats the topic of war, which pervades the album, but in a really cool, subversive way.
Notice that the last song, possibly Maiden’s final career statement, expresses how absurd war is. The fact that the album has a samurai, the perfect warrior, on the cover AND is titled Senjutsu (the “art” of war) is pretty clever, too. Even the booklet design features some really cool war scenes that cleverly lampoon the absurdity of war. In some places (opening song, “Death of the Celts”, and “The Darkest Hour”), war is justified as a means of defense and preventing greater evil from taking place, but overall, the band’s artistic message is pretty clear and is consistent with the band’s other post-2000 highlight, A Matter of Life and Death.
Using the Maiden Revelations scale, I’m currently rating Senjutsu at 3/6. I read a comment on another site that described parts of Death of the Celts as verging on muzak. That kinda sums up most of the album for me. Stratego, which I initially dismissed as a lesser example of generic gallop, has *really* grown on me. I love it now, but my initial impressions about the rest of the album are holding firm. The only ‘wow’ was for Adrian’s solo on TWOTW. The rest of the album has its moments (e.g. the Darkest Hour chorus), but nothing that really makes me want to hit repeat. There’s nothing I really dislike about it, either. Janick playing the vocal melody does get tired and lends a samey air to the songs. Ditto for Steve’s relentlessly predictable intros, outros and key changes. Some of it, especially the closing trio of epics, I find quite cinematic: epic soundscapes, yes, but I am not convinced they work as cohesive epic songs. In fact, I’d probably like Senjutsu more if it was the soundtrack to some historical or fantasy film.
I think it’s clear from my other comments here that I’m essentially a classic Maiden and Bruce/Roy Z fan. I got into Maiden in ’87 but didn’t see them live until ’90, and it continues to irk me that I never witnessed them during the ‘golden era’. I fell out of love with modern Maiden when AMOLAD was released, but The Book of Souls won me back. I don’t think Senjutsu has anything to compare to the epic heft of If Eternity Should Fail or the emotion of Tears of a Clown (now, that’s Harris the lyricist at his best). I even love The Red and the Black, all of it, despite it recycling and magnifying every single Harris trope.
I don’t think Senjutsu will be the last album. I imagine Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel will be stirring the composer in Steve. 🙂
Others have stated their pros and cons of Senjutsu much more eloquently and with more appreciation of production techniques than I ever could do won’t bore you with my opinion other to say that I really like it. I do think it’s missing an old school balls out banger though, something true of most 2000 onwards albums. That got me thinking that they could just about get a short album of thrilling and short tunes from the post reunion albums which would rival killers:
fallen angel
Rainmaker
Montsegur
Different world
Pilgrim (possibly)
The alchemist (that’d be the best song on the album. Maybe behind montsegur)
Speed of light
Death or glory
Might need to work on the running order a bit
That’s a classic album! 🙂
This is what is special about Maiden. The diversity of opinion and emotion they draw from their fans. You mentioned AMOLAD, which is a phenomenal album and in my top 5 outside of Seventh Son, NOTB, POM, Powerslave. I would say Senjutsu is what it is. And that’s what Maiden has become post 2000 and I like it. The Parchment is awesome. It heartens back to Tame a Land, Powerslave, and The Nomad. I don’t mind the rehash of riffs, but rather look forward to seeing how they use them. This album uses a variety of ideas from all of their catalog. And yes Steve’s intros and outros are monotonous, but they are now expected, just Gers playing the melody to the words. It’s their signature in post 2000 Maiden. Even though on Senjutsu, Gers playing to the vocals is done well and is less prominent in the mix which adds texture to the songs. This album is a 5/6 and rivals AMOLAD as their best post 2000.
“This is what is special about Maiden. The diversity of opinion and emotion they draw from their fans.”
Indeed!
All I can say at the moment is that I’m enjoying Senjutsu very much. The Steve Harris formula is clearly there, but it’s not like it doesn’t work on the songs that he’s written. None of them have me thinking “oh get on with it”, which The Red and the Black definitely did.
Where it’ll end up sitting in the top 17 ranking Iron Maiden studio albums I couldn’t say at the moment.
Agreed. As much as I like The Red and The Black at the beginning and verse sections, it definitely dragged on. I don’t get that feeling from the last three songs on Senjutsu. There’s enough going on musically to keep my interest and I don’t notice the run time. There is some fantastic guitar work and solos on this album, which stand out from previous post 2000 releases. The band members are all in their 60’s (Nicko I believe is 70) and they are still producing relevant music, even if it is a formula and a rehash of older material. But what band doesn’t use previous albums as a guide for new music.
I’d be amazed if any band could make 17 albums without repeating themselves or appearing to use a formula. They’ve managed to put things together in new ways though – for example The Parchment does have echoes of Powerslave and The Nomad, but you’d never confuse it with being a 2021 (well, 2019) rerecording or anything like that.
And there are still things in there which are new – Senjutsu, WOTW, the start of Lost in a Lost World are all quite different from anything they’ve done before.
Great to read all your thoughts on Senjutsu, people! I didn’t consider doing a review, because I want to enjoy it as a fan and I know that it will take a couple of years for me to contextualize it. But so far, I have to say it is easily the Maiden album I’ve enjoyed the most since A Matter Of Life And Death.
My daughter (nearly 2) is enjoying it too. The Parchment just started and she exclaimed “yayyyy!”
Same here. While i enjoyed The Final Frontier and Book of Souls, i think Senjutsu is definitely above those two albums. Definitely have my share of issues with it, like many people have with some of the mixing, some of Bruce’s vocals, and little too much repetition in some of the songs. The Parchment and Hell On Earth are great, some of the best tracks since the reunion back in 2000.
If i would give it a rating like in this site, maybe a 4/6.
I agree, Norzan. I find this album clearly more enjoyable than the previous two.
After several more listens of the album in its entirety I still feel it’s a great album. However as much as I enjoy the last three epics, especially the guitar work, I wonder if Bruce and Adrian “rolled their eyes” and resigned themselves to the fact that Steve once again compiled songs with same structure, more or less, as his other “epics” offered on other post 2000 albums. Same intro and outro, same chord progressions, etc. Again, I still like the Steve songs, but I prefer the Dickinson/Smith partnership. Adrian is such an important part of the band. Him teaming with Steve on Senjutsu song shows his influence, as it’s much different than anything Steve would compile on his own. As far as production, this album, along with AMOLAD, was able to capture the layered and textured sound of the three guitars, which has been washed out on previous albums. Still a 5/6 album for me.
It’s funny, Nicko mentioned the other day that Shirley will sometimes tell them how long a song has become, and they’ll say “Why do you tell us what the clock says?”
After several more listens, I believe Senjutsu is the second best album of the reunion era behind AMOLAD, which is in type 5 all time behind Seventh Son, NOTB, POM, and Powerslave. In the reunion era I would rank: 1. AMOLAD, 2. Senjutsu, 3. BNW, 4. TBOS, 5. DOD, 6. TFF. Senjutsu is a well balanced album, as there are no truly weak songs or “filler” that occasionally plague prior studio efforts. Highlights for me are Darkest Hour, Senjutsu, The Parchment, Hell on Earth, and TWOW.
Yeah, i feel the same when it comes to the album having really no filler or weak songs. There’s not a single song where i have this urge to skip it or feel like i gain nothing from listening to it. I think the last album to me where this happened is Seventh Son, everything after that until Book of Souls have at least a track that i have no qualms in skipping.
Obviously i like some songs better than others in Senjutsu, but even my least favorite is still worth listening to.
I’m very close to agreeing completely. I’d probably rank them: 1) AMOLAD, 2) Senjutsu, 3) BNW, 4) DOD, 5) TBOS, 6) TFF.
For me, AMOLAD and Senjutsu contend for the top spot, each for a different reason. Both sound similar in terms of production and are very orchestral. AMOLAD is weighty and very consistent, but Senjutsu is more magical and has a slightly better production, so it might be the better of the two, but they’re so close, it’s hard to pick a winner at this point. The rest of the post-2000 albums are all mixed bags, each for a different reason, so it’s difficult to rank them. I kind of think of them as being in the same group.
Started to contemplate which songs Maiden will play live from this album, once the album tour starts. Typically they will play 5 to 6 songs from the album tour. My guess is Senjutsu, Stratego, Days of Future Past, The Parchment, and Hell on Earth. I would like to hear TWOW and Darkest Hour, but I feel they will be left off the set list.
Stratego would be the obvious choice, but it would be interesting if they opened with the title track. I’d say TWOTW is a definite, perhaps with the animated video being shown on the big screens. Darkest Hour would probably share the fate of Tears of a Clown and last for only part of the tour. Of the ‘big three’ epics, The Parchment and possibly Hell On Earth seem more likely than Death of the Celts. But who knows!
Despite not being keen on the music (initial impressions holding firm/reinforced after repeated listens), the album’s artwork is *superb* and I hope they go all-out with a samurai-themed stage set. 🙂
On the assumption that they don’t play the whole thing (I wouldn’t object if they did), then I think Senjutsu, Stratego, TWOTW, Days of Future Past and one of the last 3 are definite. I would pick Hell on Earth, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they do The Parchment or both. Death of the Celts would be a surprise.
I don’t think there’s much chance of Lost in a Lost World or The Time Machine (though TTM is one of my favorites). Darkest Hour I think you’re right, it might start the tour, but they’ll replace it with Wrathchild before long.
I’d love to hear the whole album live. Considering how the production was more elaborate on the album, the live versions will sound different and exciting.
I think the samurai-stage theme is inevitable, I also hope they go all-in on that. It could be very cool if they do it right.
My picks for the new songs in the tour setlist would be:
-Senjutsu (would be cool as an opener, but also in the middle of the set)
-Stratego
-Days of future past
-The time machine
-The parchment
Hopefully, they will have only 3-4 that is played every single night, and mix it up from time to time with 1-2 new songs like Darkest hour, TWOTW etc.
But I wouldn´t mind if they played the whole album like in 2006. There is not a song I dislike, but the songs I listed above is imo a good mix of long/shorter songs, heavy/ epic and so on.
I would be very suprised if they would perform both The Parchment and Hell on Earth, as the combined time on just those two songs would be more than 20 minutes.
Great stuff! I definitely would buy (and read again) if this is put into a book together with previous articles, and I’m hoping more will come.
Thanks, Jesus!
It’s now been over a month since the release of Senjutsu, and whether you love it, hate it, or fall somewhere in between, I’m reflecting on the fact that Iron Maiden is still releasing albums for over 40 years. A longevity that needs to be admired, especially with their genre of music.
Iron Maiden holds a special place for me, hearkening back to when I first heard them in 1986 when I was in high school. I was drinking beers with friends in my friend’s old Barracuda (a great US muscle car not made anymore) and he played the song “The Number of the Beast”. That was my first exposure to Maiden and I was hooked. It was ferocious, fast, almost demonic, yet an accessible listen. I immediately made a copy of my friends NOTB tape (remember doing that?) and listened to NOTB constantly.
Next came Somewhere in Time. I was at a carnival and saw the Eddie “Clint Eastwood” looking poster. I played the game and won the poster. I again made a copy of Somewhere in Time tape from my friend. Upon first listen, I was like “What”? This wasn’t the NOTB Maiden I fell in love with. But after several listens I realized Maiden was unique in that they have a Maiden sound, but yet sound fresh. I would’ve have never imagined that the band that recorded the song NOTB and Hallowed Be Thy Name, also recorded Wasted Years and Heaven Can Wait. It was so different, yet still Maiden.
I then purchased Piece of Mind and Powerslave, and I was an affirmed Maiden die hard fan. I then purchased Live After Death. Let’s just say I had to serve detention in school for listening to that tape on my walkman in class. I wore that tape out, literally. I played it so much that the tape snapped.
Next came Killers and Iron Maiden. I had no idea that they had a different singer prior to those purchases and I was initially a little disappointed, especially buying them around the same time as POM and Powerslave. Over time I learned to appreciate the Di’Anno albums, especially Killers.
Then in 1988 I was sitting in a friend’s Cutlass (another car they don’t make anymore), again drinking beer. And on his Alpine stereo system he played The Clairvoyant. I had no idea Maiden had released a new album. That thundering bass line and harmonic guitars. I loved it. Immediately went out and bought SSOASS. I loved everything about it. I loved that this was the sound that Maiden progressed to. To this day, SSOASS is my favorite Maiden album.
From 1988 on I closely followed everything Maiden did and eagerly awaited news of a new album. The nineties came and Maiden faltered a little, but I still found enjoyment in No Prayer for the Dying and Fear of the Dark, even though neither of those albums were close to the complete efforts of the 1980’s offerings. Looking back, Bruce and Adrian leaving needed to happen. Complacency or lack of creativity was setting in and they needed time away for a reset. That reset came in 2000 with the reunion. The post 2000 reunion albums also have been a mixed bag, but mostly enjoyable and occasionally fantastic (see AMOLAD). Here we are 40 years into their career and Maiden is still making music that I look forward to and always takes me back to my high school days. I have grown from a sixteen year old kid to a 49 year old dad, and Maiden has been with me the every step of the way. There’s not a day that passes when I don’t listen to something from the Maiden catalog. I believe many Maiden fans have the same relationship to the band as I do. That’s what makes Maiden special. They truly are unique. No one sounds like Maiden. They are originals, in a genre of copycats.
Fantastic, thanks for sharing that story, Bill P.!
Thank you for all you do in creating an atmosphere where others reflect and comment on Iron Maiden’s extensive career. I always look forward to the next post you have.
I failed to mention the Blaze years in my post. I do own those albums, but never really connected to them. I listened to the X Factor several times when I bought it and liked some of it. I think the songs are decent, but the production is awful. I think it would be great for it to re-recorded with Bruce and Adrian. For me, however Virtual XI is a lost cause. Just bad. I bought it. Listened to it for about three days and I have never listened again. The only accessible song on that release is the Clansman, but I opt for the Bruce live versions.
@ Bill P – your Maiden experience is identical to mine! Except I’m 6 years younger so my story started in 1992. Got into them via the odd song my brother had on a mix tape – I think Holy Smoke was the first Maiden song I really listened to and I was blown away by that. Can you imagine the riches to come from that starting point?? Every other week I’d collect my paper round money on a Saturday (£7.50) and get the bus into Leeds to go to HMV and hoover up Maiden’s back catalogue on tape plus when my budget stretched to t-shirts and VHS videos. I’ve still got a photo of me at a family Christmas party c1993 wearing what looks like a normal black button up shirt from the front but it had a full backprint of the Eddie as ‘Arry from Fear of the Dark Live. It was my pride and joy at the time although looking back I can see it wasn’t the sharpest outfit! My folks hated it. I spent ages poring over the inlay to Live After Death in particular and for some reason Piece of Mind’s inlay was the wrong way round so that the tape box opened from the left not the right which baffled me then and now. Your comments on Maiden being a constant part of your life and on Christer’s ability to create an atmosphere where we can all reflect and contribute on their career are absolutely bang on. Ah man you’ve sent me down a tunnel of nostalgia! Keep safe everyone
I got into Maiden relatively late into their carreer back in 2006 (i’m 32) through my brother. He was a metal fan (emphasis on “was” unfortunately) and he was collecting all the Iron Maiden, Manowar and Metallica albums back in 2005, and i vividly remember him transfering all the songs from those bands’s albums to his first laptop. He spents a rather long time doing that he listened to the songs while he was doing it.
He was really into Manowar and by proxy i also became a fan of theirs mainly because i was in my late teens and their over the top, cheesy lyrics somehow spoke to me. I also liked a lot of their solos. And for a like a year that’s all i heard, my brother played a lot of Manowar and not much of Maiden and Metallica. (for how i feel about Manowar currently, don’t care much for them anymore. I do still listen to some of their songs, and i think their 1988’s Kings of Metal is quite enjoyable.)
Then in late 2006 i got my own MP3 and decided to add a bunch of Maiden songs just for hell of it because i was getting tired of Manowar. Took me a bit to search for something that i liked, but i remember really liking Fear of the Dark (the title track, not the whole album). Then it just snowballed from there and i ended up liking a lot of their songs (i even liked X Factor and Virtual XI quite a bit), to the point i actually got excited for their upcoming record (which was AMOLAD). Ironically, i didn’t liked AMOLAD very much except for an handful of songs, but recent listens and my taste changing quite a bit since 2006 and it’s now one of my favorite reunion albums.
16 years since i have became a fan and i have listened to pretty much every new release. Liked all of them, some more than others, but i’m still excited for whatever Maiden might release next.
So great to read your stories, everyone!
I was 8 or 9 when I first heard Maiden, borrowed the Live After Death tape from a friend at school. The vibe of the music and artwork hooked me, I could listen to it over and over all day long. Then I started picking up their catalog on vinyl. My dad was a vinyl collector, huge fan of Jethro Tull, so he always encouraged me to get music for myself. I remember buying copies of Piece Of Mind and Powerslave and feeling like Maiden took me into other worlds.
When I was 10, I picked up Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son at some point in 1988 and vividly remember the first time I put it on the turntable. Moonchild and Infinite Dreams made for the heaviest and most atmospheric opening to a record that I had ever heard. All things considered, I have never had the need to skip a single song from 1983 through 1988.
Then I turned 12, and was alert for a new Maiden release for the first time. My mum was in the city on 1 October, returning to our village on the nightrain with a copy of No Prayer For The Dying. I had heard Holy Smoke on the radio, and I remember being disappointed, but I still had great expectations as I sat down with my headphones in the early morning light. Unfortunately, even though I was a 12 years old Maiden worshipper, I distinctly remember being underwhelmed. No Prayer simply did not match what I had come to expect from Maiden through the 1980s.
But I always stayed a fan. I was there throughout the Blaze era, bought every album, single and concert ticket I could. I always wanted to love Maiden, but it is truly incredible to write these words some 35 years after first hearing them, having just gotten YET ANOTHER new Maiden record. And a damn good one too. I have to pinch myself and remember the lean years. Senjutsu is better than any Maiden fan has the right to hope for at this point.
I became a fan around 1993/1994, when a friend gave me a copied tape of fear of the dark (along with Use Your Illusion 1). It took a while to get into it – I wasn’t hugely into music at all then, but I did like Erasure. Still do, as it happens, but that’s not relevant. It was the guitar lines on Childhood’s End which eventually reeled me in. Once I’d accumulated a CD player and enough money for some CDs, I went out and bought Killers and A Real Dead One.
I had been told that Bruce had left, but even so this DiAnno character confused me a bit – was he the new singer? Took a while to get a handle on quite what had happened there in those pre-internet days. Aside from 3 or 4 songs I found Killers hard to get into, and it’s still not a favorite, but I loved A Real Dead One straight off. After that I got Seventh Son (which I loved instantly) and Somewhere in Time (which I didn’t). And then Man on the Edge and then The X Factor came along – the first new Iron Maiden music of my fandom. I loved Man on the Edge and the B sides I got (Justice of the Peace and Edge of Darkness), though the album was a slow burn, but because I’d decided I was an Iron Maiden fan at that point I persevered with it and now it’s in my personal top 5. (Having listened to a lot of Blaze’s work since he left, I think he’s a much better singer now than he was then…).
It was some months later that I spent my birthday money on the “story so far” box set with all the B sides to that point and stuff, and I could finally hear Powerslave, TNOTB etc.
And then I was old enough to go to see the shows when the VXI tour came round. Brixton on that tour was my first time seeing the band, and even though it’s widely thought of as the lowest point in their career, it was instrumental in my experience. By then I was good enough at guitar to figure out how to play about 5 of the songs on VXI, and my crappy band happened to have a practice on the day that the Angel single came out, so I imagine we were amongst the very first bands to attempt a cover of it…
Then Bruce and Adrian returned, and whilst I was and will always be a fan of the Blaze era, they’re a much better band with those two in the line up than without. Adrian especially.
Cool story!
@Christer, you are spot on regarding what Maiden accomplished with Senjutsu. A band that has been around for over 40 years, still making compelling and interesting music, that leaves millions of people anticipating their album release and wanting more in the future. And I know there has been a lot of borrowing from other Maiden riffs and music from their previous catalog that becomes prominent on Senjutsu, but in this regard I believe they did a really good job of spreading that “copying” representing different albums and time periods. And yes Death of the Celts, The Parchment, and Hell on Earth are not the classic epics of Steve Harris, but for me they are all memorable and good and despite closing out the album with long run times, I don’t feel like they drag on. The songs progress and move on nicely so that the length is not an issue. I believe it’s due to the great guitar work, which keeps the listener attentive.
Quite simply the best heavy metal band in the world ever. Great article in which I learnt so much and great read of itself. Senjutsu is a brilliant piece of work in my opinion, Maiden back to their very best. As to the comments on the three guitars being underwhelming on studio albums, maybe, but when you hear them live that’s when the hairs on your neck stand up and before you know it you have a stupid inane grin on your face and your head just starts to rock forward and backwards. I was at Download with my 15 year old son in 2015, he loves Children of the damned and when they played it he said it sounded fuller, the extra guitar. There will never be a band like Iron Maiden, let’s enjoy them as long as they can keep doing it.
Thanks, Julian! Yes, the Maiden live sound is incredible with three guitars. That’s why I’m frustrated that Harris has dropped Shirley on the last two live albums. Harris’ own work leaves the guitars sounding muddy and many details of the three-guitar work inaudible.
Fair point Christer and yes one that does frustrate when you’ve heard the same song live and it sounds different.
When Maiden begin an album based tour for Senjutsu, I hope they include a few tracks that are not played live very much or not at all. The addition of Flight of Icarus and Where Eagles Dare to the Legacy tour is great. For the Senjutsu tour it would be awe inspiring to finally introduce Alexander the Great to the set list. It would fit nicely to the theme of the album. One can dream.
@ everyone – a bit off topic but I found myself listening to Powerslave in the car earlier and got me thinking about the spoken word section in the middle, specifically who actually narrated it (and the intro to Alexander the Great while we’re at it!). There’s not much on line about it, a few people saying it’s Bruce putting on a classic narrator voice but it doesn’t sound like it to me. Anyone got any ideas?? Hope everyone safe and well, Dave
Sorry, to be clear I meant the spoken word section of Rime of the Ancient Mariner
I would have imagined it’s Bruce. Pretty sure he does it on Live After Death.
On a semi-related note, for a while my mates and I thought it was Murray doing the start to TNOTB, because there’s a “what is it Dave?” on the Real Dead One version, which was the only version I had for quite a while.
I don’t know who it is, but an actor definitely. Bruce never sounded like that, and he never did these things live, they’re always tapes.
Since this review is about the post 2000 Maiden, I ranked the reunion albums as: 1. AMOLAD, 2. Senjutsu, 3. BNW, 4. TBOS, 5. DOD, 6. TFF. With that said I consider AMOLAD a clear number one and atop 5 album for IM discography. Senjutsu and BNW are interchangeable for me, as BNW holds a special place because it was the reunion, but I feel Senjutsu is a more complete work. That leads me to TBOS and DOD. I waver between the two at their positions. DOD has more great songs, such as Rainmaker, DOD, Paschendale, and Montsegur. DOD highs are higher than TBOS, but their lows are lower than TBOS. The weak tracks Gates of Tomorrow, Age of Innocence, and No More Lies, are far less enjoyable than say The Man of Sorrows, When the River Runs Deep, and Shadows of the Valley. TBOS is a more complete and consistent album. Thoughts? Also I’m very excited about the news that IM added shows to the Legacy of the Beast tour, including Senjutsu songs and themes. I’ll be getting my Greensboro, NC tickets today for 10/2022 show.
I can see how AMOLAD and Senjutsu are almost a tie for you. Senjutsu has a slightly better production, in my opinion. It reminds me of SSOASS in that the guitars sound very harmonically rich, just like on “Infinite Dreams” (check out some isolated tracks from the song on YouTube to see what I mean). It’s got a little bit of that Tom Scholz Rockman sound, and also reminds me of Rush from the Roll the Bone era in terms of guitar tone and overall production. The guitar on the right channel of “Lost in a Lost World” is very fuzzy, and a similar sound is also employed on “Hell on Earth.” This harmonic density and richness and layering of sounds is why Senjutsu sounds really great on headphones. AMOLAD is the closest a Maiden album has come to being a concept album since SSOASS. The strong thematic coherence, both sonic and visual, is what gives the album the consistency that we all have praised it for. Senjutsu also has a very consistent theme, but it is more subversive and therefore not as obvious as on AMOLAD.
Although it is still too early to decide, I am leaning towards Senjutsu as the best post-reunion album. With the exception of “The Legacy,” no other song on AMOLAD had the emotional impact that many songs from Senjutsu had on me. I literally had to suppress my tears on many of the songs while listening to the album the first couple of times.
“Senjutsu,” the opening track, as a beautifully impressionistic overture to the album, is reminiscent of the colorful expressionism Maiden have achieved on “Mother of Mercy.”
“Lost in a Lost World” is a real highlight, an Irish sounding sentimental piece with profound and heart wrenching lyrics about the loss of a beautiful culture. The beauty of the metaphoric language in the following lyrics cannot be denied.
Feel the spirits of the old ones standing proud upon their race
And the testament to ancestors that are never to retrace
Burn the flame of innocence as they ride into the sun
Thinking now of our forefathers that are lying dead upon
Holy ground and sacred earth now
Revisit stolen youth
—
Will we ever heal our old wounds, like forever darkness worn
Fighting for their lives again so come on now, don’t be afraid
This is where destiny lies, just to let us breathe again
Put upon this earth to wander and to walk forever lost
With the ashes of our enemies to live among our ghosts
Of our past fear nothing, life is but a better path to joy
Nowhere to go, nowhere to run, our whole nation overrun
Itself existence under threat and soon will be none of us left
Remember names of all our dead now in enemies that fled
Reaching for our sky forever, free a sadness that is proud
As the clouds all drift away now
Until we meet again
This is the kind of stuff that separates Maiden from all other bands and puts Maiden in a league of their own. A true class act. Note also how the lyrics seem informed by the band’s age and wisdom, and how the “until we meet again” line reads like a message to the fans, as many of the lyrics on this album do.
Continuing with “Lost in a Lost World” as a case in point, this album also impresses because it succeeds at making effective use of Janick’s lead guitar accompanying Bruce’s vocal lines, which was often an intrusive and unpleasant element in the past, but now channels some real Irish folk romanticism in the style of Robert Burns. This combination of Irish romanticism with a topic about Native Americans is something that, in theory, should not have worked, but Maiden have managed to pull off. Forgettable bands make music. Great bands, like Thin Lizzy and Guns’n’Roses, have a strong identity that is rooted in the history and tradition of the environment in which they were formed. Iron Maiden are one of those bands, as they continue to forge a strong identity that reflects more than just the fashions of the music industry at the moment. The band is rooted in something beyond what the current times and commercial forces dictate.
“The Time Machine” is lyrically a bit opaque and musically disjointed, as it typical of Janick’s compositions, and sounds a bit like an unintended flirtation with pirate metal. Or maybe “Ghost of Navigator,” “The Talisman,” and “The Time Machine” were/are Maiden’s way of preempting pirate metal bands and taking the wind out of their sails (pun intended), but that’s a speculation for another day. Despite its chaotic songwriting and frustrating lyrics, the heavy metal clichés on the song are really enjoyable and remind me of the highlights on “Lord of Light” and “Children of the Damned.” By clichés, I am referring to the vocal melody sung by Bruce on
Open your heart and I’ll open you soul
Even in quieter moments, I know
It’s heavy metal by the numbers, almost like a parody, but occasionally Janick gets it right. As long as it works, I am happy, flaws and all.
“Death of the Celts” has a beautiful peak where the bass and the rest of the instruments sound so organic, it’s almost as if they’re breathing and pulsating. It’s magical, the kind of stuff that Steve probably lives for, but is so elusive and only happens once in a while, when the stars are aligned just right.
The closer, “Hell on Earth,” is another beautiful creation, a song with such a powerful emotional impact from the first three chords on, while Steve’s lyrics reflect on the follies of war and what happens to those that survive this most absurd of human activities. The final verses
Love in anger, life in danger
Lost in anger, life in danger
seem also like a fitting assessment of our times. After years of costly and dangerous economic wars in the Middle East, we are now dealing with a large number of mentally damaged “veterans” struggling to reenter civilian life; gun ownership and gun-related violence is rising; and political division and opportunistic demagoguery by unscrupulous politicians are corrupting the minds of people with insane conspiracy theories, leading many towards a descent to rage and anger, as they fail to cope with the realities and results of a system that they themselves support, ironically.
These are some of the reasons why I currently lean more towards Senjutsu as the better of the two albums, when compared to AMOLAD, but it remains to be seen how Senjutsu will stand the test of time and repeated critical scrutiny.
With the Legacy tour coming up with added Senjutsu songs I compiled a set list for the war, religion, and hell themes with 4 songs for each theme.
War: 1. Senjutsu, 2. The Longest Day, 3. Die With Your Boots On, 4. Paschendale.
Religion: 1. Flight of Icarus, 2. Heaven Can Wait, 3. Days of Future Past, 4. Sign of the Cross.
Hell: 1. NOTB, 2. From Here to Eternity, 3. Purgatory 4. Hell on Earth.
Encore: The Wicker Man, The Writing on the Wall, 2 Minutes to Midnight, The Evil That Men Do, and Iron Maiden
That set list gives representation to every album except for No Prayer, Virtual, TFF, and TBOS.
Well, now Bruce has claimed that the 2022 Legacy tour will have the first three songs on Senjutsu at the opening of the set, and he has confirmed that the band will do a Senjutsu tour performing the entire album. It’s a refreshing change of pace, and probably a welcome challenge for the band after many years of Legacy and covid.
I can’t wait to hear Senjutsu live in its entirety. The album is THAT good.
“and he has confirmed that the band will do a Senjutsu tour performing the entire album.”
That’s amazing, definitely looking forward for live version of The Parchment and Hell On Earth.
Hi Christer, big fan of this site.
Is there any plans for more chapters in the Maiden history, perhaps covering AMOLAD and TFF? I know these type of well researched articles takes a lot of time to write, I´m just courious because they are so damn good!
Great suggestion. I love AMOLAD. I rank it in my top 5 Maiden albums of all time. From reading the site, I know Christer is fond of the album as well and a song by song review would be welcomed. Conversely, I feel TFF is the weakest of post 2000 albums. I never listen to it in its entirety. The songs I only listen to are El Dorado, Mother of Mercy, The Talisman, and WTWWB. The rest is pretty forgetful, even though the lyrics to Starblind are some of the best in their catalog, but musically I’m not that enthralled by it.
Thank you, Majsan, that’s very kind of you! Let’s put it this way: Having come this far, I don’t intend to stop until Maiden do. 🙂 But there is no time frame at the moment. Cheers!
I have complained about volume drops on “Starblind” before, noting that, in my opinion, such oversight is inexcusable when you’re producing an album for the biggest heavy metal band in history. At the same time, I was inclined to give Kevin Shirley a pass, given that it was, to my knowledge at the time, the only instance of the issue. Well, the other day, I discovered another one of those, this time on our beloved A Matter of Life and Death. There are a few volume drops in the intro of “The Longest Day” on the left channel. This happens when the compression parameters are not set appropriately for the song or section of the song. Whereas the issue on “Starblind” could be blamed on the mastering engineer, that explanation can’t be used in the case of “The Longest Day,” since Kevin did all the production on the album himself (it is well known that Kevin had complaints about the mastering quality of his Maiden albums and therefore decided to forgo mastering on A Matter of Life Death.”
I admit that it may be difficult to spot the problem on mixing monitors, but it is immediately noticeable on headphones. How, or why, Kevin ended up not checking the mix on headphones, which is the best way to zoom in and check the detail in a mix, is beyond me, as this is pretty much standard procedure in music production.
when are u going to write the review for senjustu
No plans at the moment. We tend to look back at Maiden history step by step and don’t keep up with current affairs that much.
U sure seemed to keep up with the book of death, u hyped that up quite a bit
That was seven years ago.
This the best site to discuss Maiden. So many views from those who are fans to those who have expertise or insight into production and songwriting. The fact we are still discussing Maiden after decades, it’s a testament to a band that has stayed at the least as relevant, to one that is inspiring/influential. With that said, it’s been 40 years since NOTB.
While NOTB for me is not their best album, but is their most influential album. It’s the first Maiden album I heard and got me hooked. I feel NOTB still sounds the best of the Maiden discography. Martin Birch nailed the sound. Lyrically the album is simplistic, although descriptive and though provoking. It laid the groundwork for more intricate songwriting and lyrical content to come later. As it was influential for many metal bands, it was a major stepping stone for what Maiden would involve to in the 1980’s. It was a departure from the prior two releases, both of which had a “street level” punk rock feel. NOTB rather dabbled in the epic and atmospheric melodious feel of subsequent efforts, but yet maintaining the heaviness of the early 2 albums.
As for the songs on NOTB, I like them all. When I listen to the album I listen all the way through, not skipping any song. Even the more maligned songs Invaders and Gangland, are very good. The groove and darting rhythm section of Invaders is great. And although many Maiden songs are better in the live setting, I prefer the slower tempo and moody album version of Hallowed Be Thy Name which suits the lyrics better than the faster paced, high energy live versions (although still fantastic). For me, NOTB because of its influence and how it laid the groundwork for the future is a 6 star album (Christer scale) only outdone by SSOASS, the utltimate complete album of music and atmosphere and sound. But that’s a discussion for later.
That’s a great description of Beast’s greatness! And I’ll definitely agree that Seventh Son is a faultless record, even among the many close-to-faultless records of Maiden’s 1980s period.
I’ve just read a couple of these excellent articles, which are an excellent counterpoint to the Mick Wall book, which feels like it has quite a bit of positive spin when it covers the later albums.
As your articles are so well researched I was wondering if you have access to some information I have been looking for. In about 2000 on the official iron maiden website there was a page where the band members each listed their top 3 maiden albums. I think it must have been in a band biography section. I have searched high and low on the internet archive but cannot find it anwhere. I am fairly sure at least 4 or 5 band members had BNW on their lists, so it must’ve been after the release of that album. Steve’s favourites, if I recall, included SSOASS and TXF, and I think POM was on there. Adrian’s, I think, included SIT. Anyway, if you happen to remember what these lists were or have them anywhere, I would be very apprecitive.
Hi Dan, and thanks! I remember what you’re talking about, but I don’t have the info anywhere. The curse of websites, really. Every upgrade or redesign makes content you liked go away forever. But you’re right about Steve, he’s on record many times through the years stating that Piece of Mind and Seventh Son were his favorites of the 80s and X Factor the one from the 90s. Would have been great to know what he thinks of the later ones in that context.
Hi Christer, thanks for the response. Interestingly, I think Steve has also implied that he rates Killers quite highly compared to most people. It’s either in the Mick Wall book or the ’12 wasted years’ documentary where he says he wasn’t sure that NOTB was the best album they had done up until that point, and putting that together with the fact that the band members don’t rate the first album highly due to the production, that suggests he thinks Killers might be the best out of the first 3.
From what I recall, the lists I am thinking of looked something like:
Steve
TXF, SSOASS, POM
Bruce
NOTB, BNW, POM(?)
Janick
BNW,FOTD, Unsure (maybe an 80s album?)
Adrian
BNW,SIT, SSOASS(?)
Dave
BNW, 2x Unsure
Nicko
BNW, 2xUnsure
Yeah, Steve is very clear in the Wall book that he rates Killers highly and didn’t think Beast was their best album at that point. Going by that list, Brave New World must have been their most recent. But I’m sure Bruce would still pick it, he seems to mention that record quite a lot.
Yes, and Bruce states in his autobiography that he thinks DoD is not as good as BNW.
For what it’s worth, I would really like to see more content on the decade 1992-2002. I think this is the most interesting period perhaps because it is not spoken about as much by the band. The Wall book covers this period pretty well but it has a lot of positive bias about the Blaze period, especially VXI (although I do rate X factor highly). I think BNW is one of the top 3 albums but after that they tail off heavily in quality, maybe the band maybe became too complacent after the success of that one.
Maiden were going to get dropped by EMI, that much was evident which is why they reformed with Bruce. Nothing more, nothing less.