(2003)
Steve Dave, Bruce, Adrian, Janick and Nicko
1. Wildest Dreams (Smith/Harris)
2. Rainmaker (Murray/Harris/Dickinson)
3. No More Lies (Harris)
4. Montsegur (Gers/Harris/Dickinson)
5. Dance of Death (Gers/Harris)
6. Gates of Tomorrow (Gers/Harris/Dickinson)
7. New Frontier (McBrain/Smith/Dickinson)
8. Paschendale (Smith/Harris)
9. Face in the Sand (Smith/Dickinson/Harris)
10. Age of Innocence (Murray/Harris)
11. Journeyman (Smith/Harris/Dickinson)
Since the reunion, Maiden have begun making and recording albums in a different way than they used to. Before, they would go into the studio, record their seperate parts... the normal thing to do when recording an album. What Maiden have chosen to do since Brave New World is to record 'live', in an effort to capture their live sound in the stduio. So the band will run through a track the whole way for maybe four or five times, then that's it. Next, Kevin Shirely (the producer) and presumably Steve will listen to these tracks and then take the best bits of each version and 'paste' them together to make one song. Obviously it's a little more complicated than that, but in essence, that is how Dance of Death was recorded. Now, without even mentioning the obvious contradiction that this is (afterall, it's hardly live anymore, is it?), it really is just a lazy, stupid and ridiculous way to record an album. Not only does this mean that, since Bruce in basically singing the whole song from start to finish, there is a very good possibility that he'll mess-up here and there. Nothing major, but this is the reason why his vocals are not 100% excellent on songs like Rainmaker and Dance of Death. As well as this, since Nicko plays rather loose (i.e. not exactly the same on each take of the song), there will be slight tempo changes in parts of the song. It really is a absolutely terrible way to make an album. And it gets worse.
See, since Bruce left the band in '93, Steve has become more prominent than he ever used to be. Before, Bruce and Martin Birch used to be the 'opposing forces', if you will, to Steve. And this is one of the things which made those 80's albums so fantastic. When Bruce left, there was no-one to disagree with Steve. This is why The X Factor and Virtual XI are almost Steve Harris solo albums (and I shall thank travisbickle of the IMBB for that phrase); Steve had a hand in the writing of every single song on both those albums (the only two exceptions being Man on the Edge and Como Estais Amigos) and he produced both of the abums by himself. Now.. Steve iswithout question a fantastic bassist and songwriter (afterall, he wrote the best song in the world, Hallowed Be Thy Name)... he even proved he can be a competent editor on Maiden England... but what he is not, is a producer. He cannot produce albums. The production on both Blaze albums is very bad. And Steve has a love for these plunking acoustic bass intros. The X Factor is an original and daring album, but it doesn't stop the fact that 90% of the songs on it start the same way.
With Brave New World, Bruce was back and persuaded Steve to get an actual producer. Unfortunately, what we got was Kevin Shirely. Now, he's a good producer, but not with Maiden. It seems he just doesn't like telling Maiden what to do, otherwise he would have surely said something about the way the new albums have been recorded. These days, Steve has a hand in pretty much every song. He writes most of Bruce's vocal melodies, which is just idiotic. This is why we end up with some truly stupid vocal melodies in songs like Dance of Death. And we're still getting those damn bass intros... now, I do like them. They're nice. But they've been dominant in Maiden since Fear of the Dark. Some of them are fantastic (Face in the Sand) but some just leaving you wondering why (Dance of Death). You also get the feeling that Steve meddles in other members songs... would the chorus of Brave New World been that way without Steve? Maybe. Maybe not.
I'm not trying to knock Steve here, but something needs to be done. He has too much control over the band. And yes, I know that Maiden is his band... but at the end of day he's only making decisions that hurt his band. And yes I realise that this should have been a rant, but I can't be arsed to change it so it's staying this way.
More flaws now - I want to get them out of the way.
The sound. It's.. nasty. It's like listening to a wall of sound. Take a look at this. That's what the song 2 Minutes to Midnight sounds like in terms of sound/loudness. It's normal; you can see where the song starts with just Adrian playing the opening riff, then when the song kicks into full gear, then when the mellow bit after teh solos, and finally back into the last verse and chorus. It never reachers the top, never too loud. Now have a look at this. That's the same type of graph for Rainmaker. See how loud that is, constatly? It's horrible. Just to see, here's a nother example you can try right now. Play the song Fear of the Dark. Notice that the quiet, bass intro is very, very quiet? Yeah, noe play No More Lies. See the difference? The 'quiet' bass intro is fucking loud!
So there's another problem with the album. Lastly of course - and it's something I doubt any review of this album has ever not touched upon - is the cover. No, let me re-phrase that. The horrible, revolting and, most importantly, unfinished cover. The cover would have looked fine with just Eddie standing there and the monks in the background. It probably would also have looked fine had the artist finished his designs for the characters dancing around Eddie. See, he presented this rough version to the band, just to show the position and basic look of the figures. Apparantly, the band liked it the way it was and so the cover was left as it was, and is now. That's why there's no credit for the cover artist in the booklet (or band line-up... hmmm).
Now then... I think that's all the flaws covered (in far greater detail than I originally had thought), except for those relating to the songs themselves. So I can start talking about them now...