Why couldn't Blaze sing a bit more like he does here on some of the Maiden stuff is beyond me?! Thanks for the post that was a great song to revisit.
Blaze did sing Heaven Can Wait on this tour! Full list of 80-92 songs he sang with Maiden: Wrathchild Heaven Can Wait Afriad to Shoot Strangers The Evil That Men Do 2 Minutes Fear of the Dark Clairvoyant Iron Maiden Number of the Beast Hallowed be Thy Name Trooper Running Free Sanctuary Murders in the Rue Morgue (only "old" new addition to the VXI tour, and only a few times at that)
Blood on the World’s Hands This one is a solid 5/5 for me. Blaze is great. The band is great. Nicko drives things home once again. I love the chorus riff. And I really dig the sudden end to the song. Again, 5/5.
That South African MTV segment was hard to watch. The band seemed desperate to talk positively about their situation. Nicko seemed grim faced while Dave talked about Blaze’s positivity, etc. It just felt to me like “if I told them once, I told them 100 times...put Spinal Tap first and puppet show last.”
Blood on the World's Hands I love this intro where we get more of Steve's acoustic bass. The instrument has a cool and distinctive tone. As everyone else has noted, it's a nice little bass solo and I'm always happy to hear those since we don't get them too often. I also don't mind the length of the intro since it sets a good mood for the rest of the tune. I like the melody of the main riff when played by the guitars, but once Blaze sings it sounds off. Like many of the other vocal melodies written by Steve here, it's too boxy. It reminds me of Iron Man where Ozzy's melody is completely following the riff. Steve needs to lighten up and let the singer do what he feels is best. I really love how the change happens on "powerless to ACT" with that great 6/8 part. Really heavy and wonderful here. Hearing that chorus, it just screams out for Bruce to sing it. Wish they'd bring this song back sometime. The change in the middle is very well-written. Actually, this whole middle section is just great. Great technical work and possibly the best leads from Janick and Dave on the album. The chorus after the solos has some different wrinkles than we've seen in the song so far, that's a cool touch. I wish the lyrics to the chorus were more than just repeating the song title over and over, but that's standard for Steve. We get another *very slight* sing along, but it sounds like it's more implied than actually there. I think in the mix they cut of Blaze so he didn't finish the "ohhhhhhh". Some sense here! Amazing. I'll echo the sentiments of the group that it's nice to get a final verse after the middle & repeating chorus. Another thing I like is the change of lyrics at the end to say "it's our epitaph". What a happy surprise, this is consistently the best song on the album so far. It's not without problems, but I think it's a damn good song. The best parts of Sign of the Cross (intro & middle) are far superior, but as a whole song this one nudges into the lead so far. Yay!
Ok... Bar the unnecessarily drawn out intro which adds nothing (we'll all get used to these...) its a better song but that's not saying a great deal of what came before it. 2/5
The Ultimate Illustrated History of the Beast arrived at my door today. High quality coffee table type of book, with some great photos. Can't wait to dig into it.
Can't wait to get home from work to listen to "Blood on the World's Hands" and share my thoughts! 2 A.M. is going to be a controversial song for sure.
I just got myself a beautiful NM+ copy of the US version of Maiden Japan. It’s virtually flawless. Perfect looking vinyl. Sleeve is gorgeous except for some minor ring wear showing up on the back cover. Sadly, it’s going to be several weeks until my turntable is repaired.
Blood on the World’s Hands I dig that bass intro. If this album wasn’t in the underground of Maidenworld, I’ve always thought that intro would be a good show open. Imagine the curtain is still up and you hear this playing, right into the curtain drop and the first song. I like the song overall. The guitars crunch and the keyboard parts underlying parts of the song are cool. Yet just a couple years later we hear that horrible Casio keyboard sound on a certain song, but we’ll get there. A thought on Blaze. It almost seems like he was a victim of self sabotage or producer sabotage. Blaze isn’t nearly as bad as he sounds on this record. Listen to the Silicon Messiah record for proof of that. But like, you could do a retake on some of the lines of this record. Surely they didn’t not hear some of these lines and say “hey let's do that one again, mate.” It’s like Blaze wasn’t produced at all, so yeah, he kind of sucks in Maiden, but in no way do I believe it’s all his fault. And before you call me a Blaze apologist, I’m probably gonna kill Virtual XI, unless some of those songs are better than I remember.
I was thinking: I bet I have a more positive view of the Blaze material because I didn’t hear it at the time. I checked out in 1993 and didn’t fully come back for about 20 years. To me, the Blaze albums are curiosities...transitional albums that led to the excellence of Brave New World and everything that’s followed. I didn’t suffer through the Blaze era while it happened, not knowing what was around the corner.
With all the bad words going back and forth between Steve and Bruce, there was no way to predict that they'd get back together in '99. It was hard to hear your favorite band go down and down and down. As much as I loved Maiden, going through Fear of the Dark and then the Blaze Years didn't really kill me because Bruce's albums, specifically Accident of Birth & Chemical Wedding, got me right back and in a sense I sort of switched allegiances to Bruce and Adrian at that time. The reunion was like the dessert for me, since those two albums were so damn good and I knew that whatever Bruce did would be excellent. Don't get me wrong, I was mega stoked for the reunion (and it's proved to be even better than I could've imagined), but it was more or less like an extra bonus on top of the greatness of Bruce and H. Steve is my primary musical influence, but I pay way more attention and get more joy out of what B&A do than what Steve does. I know, I'm getting way ahead.
The Edge of Darkness (Harris, Bayley, Gers) 6:39 I'm taking this one today for @Musicman1998 . "The Edge of Darkness" is based on the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, adapted from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The novel was written about late 1800's Congo and the movie adapted to be about the Vietnam war. As I've not seen the movie or read that novel, the lyrics are confusing and lost on me. It seems like every song on this album is either about a book, a movie, a war or a book/movie about a war. Again, Steve seems like he's out of ideas. Anyway, the song: The intro has a nice Hallowed sort of quality, but on an album with SO MANY slow intros with quiet vocals it just feels like "not again, Steve!". Also, yet another war song, this time referencing the Vietnam War. The line, "they brought it up just like room service" is one of the worst lyrics on the album, next to "now he can't even give birthday presents" and various lines from tomorrow's song. Blaze is over-singing on the verses, once it kicks in, but I really don't care. His monotone bore just kind of washes over me at this point. And then, hey, it's the Hallowed Be Thy Name riff! Jeez, which ever of you wrote this part, Steve, Blaze or Janick, why are you so obviously ripping off a FAR superior Maiden song? The Hallowed gallop along with the ripped-off guitar line is too much. Ok, so, Nicko does a nice drum fill right before Janick's barfing solo. Dave's solo is there, I suppose. Following the solos comes the "we did it in Hallowed so let's do it again" harmony part. Good lord, this song stinks. Other than 1 drum fill, there's nothing redeeming about this song. Absolute waste of space. For some reason they decided to stick this song on the Man on the Edge singles, forcing people to buy multiple versions if they wanted all the B-sides. Thanks, Rod/Steve.
“Edge of Darkness” mostly sucks. It’s not the worst thing ever, but it’s a b-side at best. 1/5. Next!
The Edge of Darkness "They brought it up just like room service." @Cheevyjames beat me to it. I was going to quote this line as my full review lol. Another slow and brooding intro. Getting a little tired of this. Could be why "Judgement of Heaven" is my favorite on here. The traditional Maiden gallop makes a nice appearance throughout. I know its sacrilegious in the film world but I never cared for Apocalypse Now so the lyrics ring hollow for me. Good solos but then we come to the worst moment on the album. At 5:15 Blaze attempts to try something new with his singing and the results are laughable and downright cringe-inducing. 1.25/5
The Edge of Darkness. This might be the most embarrassing thing in the Iron Maiden catalogue. Listening to Blaze basically recite the Martin Sheen monologue from Apocalypse Now makes me want to finally buy The X-Factor just so I can throw it away. Then the cramming in of movie dialogue like 'terminate with extreme prejudice' is done in such a clunky manner. Forget the fact that the words sound stupid in song form, this is the audio equivalent of trying to get 25 fat guys in a clown car. Just stop, it's not going to fit.
The Edge of Darkness I don't like this, the room service lyric is awful, as mentioned it sounds like a poor re-write of Hallowed. Weekend Warrior may no longer be the worst Maiden song. I bought this album on cd last year, i wanted to finally get the full set of Maiden records. This is my 2nd full listen and i can see no reason to keep it, it will at least give me some shelf space back that i badly need.
The Edge of Darkness There is some stuff in there that sounds OK when there is no singing I just finished listening to the songs posted they both sucked. I have no desire to revisit them so for me its a "No!"
I'll post you my copy, i'll happily let you throw it away. Truly hard going. We will survive, we will survive...............until we get to the good albums again!
