"Powerslave", amazing song and among the very finest moments on this album. The intro has always been great as we hear those sounds and then bang were going with the riff. Great lyrics, the riff is outstanding. I like basically everything in this track, the setting and the whole atmosphere, I think this is one of the best uses of Egyptian mythology in music as it really works. The lyrics paint a whole story in my mind everytime I listen to this. Bruce's vocals are top notch and it's one of his best performances ever. Everything is great here, feeling, bass, drumming, guitar, vocals. I really like that instrumental section, Steve's bass is great and yet again Im mesmerized by it. Bassline is steady, slower solo from Dave and then bang the brilliance of H as he does that faster main solo, and Dave again on the 3rd solo. In fact, or in my opinion I think all the solos are truly great. The counterpoint between Dave's legato solo and Steve's bass is great. H delivers so legendary solo here, and it just satisfies us all. I think it's always so nice to hear versions of this song, but when I heard this song as a kid, I was really mesmerized by the version from LAD and especially on the video where there's Eddie dancing on stage. Adrian's guitar is highlighted here, so you can hear how he does the solo, just brilliant stuff:
Here's Powerslave from Boston 1999, the guitars feature only Dave and Janick. Adrian was absent from this show, as he was attending his father's funeral.
Powerslave: I love the backing vocals in the chorus, great touch that adds a lot of atmosphere. They are eerie.
Cool thread, as long as we're telling tales here's mine: Been a fan since 1980 when I discovered the Iron Maiden album in a record store in some cool shop in Connecticut that my buddy and I used to go to whenever we had money for new albums. We were into metal and the cover of the album immediately grabbed us. Back then there were very limited ways of finding out about new music, and being from a small town in Eastern CT there was not much beyond word of mouth. That was of course a revelation and soon we were avidly seeking everything Iron Maiden. I had the great fortune of seeing them open for Judas Priest on the Beast On The Road tour in Philly in '82. Phenomenal! The Prisoner is probably my all time favorite song of theirs. The guitar interplay is fantastic between Murray and Smith, almost Baroque in feel.
I always considered Powerslave (the album) to be the peak of the Dickinson era, an LP that features four alpha songs (Aces/Two/Powerslave and Rime), this thread is making me appreciate the others a little more. I still think the LP is sonically compromised, just a little due to its length when compared to the killer UK 45rpm singles for Aces High and Two Minutes to Midnight (by far the best sounding versions of these two tracks in any format), well worth hunting down if you don't have them.
I'm not a big Powerslave album fan. The Duelists, Flash of the Blade, and Back in the Village all sort of melt together for me. Not much to say about them. The title track is great though. I've always found it right scary. Something about ancient Egypt creeps me out, with all the pharaohs' curses and burying people alive and other stuff, and the song captures that atmosphere all too well. I saw Bruce and Adrian live on Bruce's solo tour in 1998. They didn't play many Maiden songs but the two I remember they definitely did were Powerslave and Flight of Icarus.
Rime Of the Ancient Mariner: We now conclude with Rime Of the Ancient Mariner, based on the 1798 poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge about a sea Mariner who is forced to walk the earth for all eternity and tell the tale of how he killed an albatross as repentance. Or in Bruce's words, "what not to do when a bird ****s on you." The song immediately begins with a good old gallop, with Bruce coming in at :16, and he does an excellent job summarizing the story, captivating the listener at every turn. And the band is doing an excellent job supporting him, from Steve and Nicko pulsating throughout the track, to Dave and Adrian harmonizing and being their awesome Dave and Adrian selves. I love the little di-di-di-duh that Steve and the guitarists do at 4:11, I don't know, it's just the sort of buzzing and whirring that Steve does. And then at 4:56, we start transitioning into the next section, which starts at 5:06, where Steve does this really cool mellow thing on the bass while Adrian and Dave both add some ambience to flourish it. And there's this Wierd creaking throughout it, and you get this Wierd spoken word at 5:49, I'm not sure who it is, can any of you Maiden experts fill me in on this, but anyway, I like it. At 7:30, we get somewhat reminiscent of Number of the Beast, but not quite, as its more bass driven, with the guitarists scratching along with Nicko's hi-hat, and Bruce channels his inner Halford at times here, and unlike Quest for Fire, it works perfectly. This song is excellent, makes perfect use of it's time, never gets dull, and makes for a phenomenal closer to this great album. Overall Thoughts and Rankings: This is a great, solid slice of Maiden, although it's my least favorite up to this point. While I like every song on here, I do feel that it doesn't quite reach the heights of the first four, although it certainly reaches great heights with Rime, the title track, The Duelists, and Aces High. We have to thank Martin Birch for the excellent job as always on production, Steve and the guitarists kick ass as always, Nicko, I am really starting to appreciate, not only very in point, but a creative player as well, complimenting the tracks and elevating them. Bruce kicks major ass on this album as well. A great album, can definitely recommend. Powerslave (5/5) Aces High (5/5) Rime of the Ancient Mariner (5/5) Flash Of the Blade (5/5) 2 Minutes to Midnight (5/5) Losfer Words (5/5) The Duelists (4/5) Back to the Village (3.5/5)
Live After Death: Gotta say, though I prefer the studio version, they did a more than respectable job at bringing this song live.
I just can't get into the slow section of Mariner. I always have to fast forward through it. The rest of the song is amazing, though. I too prefer the studio version. The band must prefer the live version, since it is the version on most compilations.
Rime Of the Ancient Mariner I'll let others describe and review the awesomeness that is Mariner and I'll tell a story. 1992, Senior year of H.S. Eng Lit class. We are discussing Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of Mariner and at the end of class, I tell my teacher that my favorite band, Iron Maiden did a song about the poem and she should read the lyrics. I told her that she would hate the music but the lyrics were spot on. She said bring the lyrics in and when we're done discussing the poem in class, she'll read them. So a day or two later we were done analyzing the poem and I brought the Live After Death booklet in for her to read it. Live After Death because its a lot easier to read than the Powerslave booklet. One of my favorite memories of my youth was seeing this little old gray haired lady reading the lyrics to Rime of the Ancient Mariner aloud to the class holding Eddie rising from the grave between her hands. She said the lyrics were a great adaptation. I played the cassette afterwards and yeah, the class could only take about a minute and a half before I had to turn it off. As for live, I prefer the Queen of England story from the LAD video to the "bird ****s on you" joke that is more readily known.
Powerslave Spooky intro leads into Bruce's fantastic riff that puts the song in an unfamiliar territory. It's kind of phrygian mode, but also kind of something else...the music here sounds really Arabic. I'm not sure how much Bruce actually knows about music theory, but the music he wrote for this song definitely puts us into a different place than we've seen before. To Tame a Land was closest, but here we go WAY more into it. And I freakin' love it. You can also tell with his lyrics and the way he sings them that even with all the other great stuff we've heard on this album, Bruce pushed the limits even more with this track. I love that pre-chorus riff, killer. It's a great choice to have the pre-chorus be instrumental and it builds more tension leading into the chorus. These guys, they just have this way of writing songs that end up title tracks for the albums and having the conceptual idea to essentially frame these albums around the title track, artwork and all. Iron Maiden - Killers - Number of the Beast - Powerslave...they all work perfectly in summing up the album and having a full package with the artwork. Brillant stuff. The song proper is fantastic, but we really take off in the mellow middle section. Steve and Dave bring the perfect atmosphere here; beautiful playing. Then Adrian uleashes the mummy with his powerful solo. Bang-bang, one after the other, totally different solos and styles, but both are stellar. The harmony part is cool as always, but I love what Steve's doing underneath it. Great bass playing from him. After this we get another cool Dave solo and I LOVE the way Nicko brings us back to the verse. Even though we've heard this stuff before (the verse riff, pre-chorus and chorus), they somehow become even more powerful after that middle section. The ending of the song is the greatest song ending in Maiden's whole catalog. Explosion after explosion after explosion. Brilliant, fantastic, amazing, every freakin' great thing I could say about this song. When I saw Bruce in '97 he played this one and it real surprise. I've been thankful that I saw them play it a few more times on the Ed Hunter tour, Somewhere Back on Tour and on the Book of Souls Tour.
Rime - Maiden's first true epic. They'd got close before, but really hit the spot with this one. Epic piece, and steadfastly refuses to outstay its welcome!!!
This is without a doubt my favorite Iron Maiden song of all of them. Unfortunately (or fortunately for most of you), I’m on my phone and can’t bang out a long winded, boring essay on the song. My love for it comes from liking Coleridge and the song being an obvious reverent take on the poem. As quickly as Steve had to write this, on a bass guitar no less, he did an admirable job with the lyrics and the music. My favorite part of the song is Steve’s melodic bass line that starts up at “and by the light of the moon” (don’t have the song or lyrics at hand at the moment, sorry!). Steve is doing a very cool melodic line off G (is it?) and as a bass player it was a blast to learn it. Back in the day, you start playing that and almost every one who liked metal recognized it. It’s a similar deal taken from”To Tame a Land” but fleshed out better with a better structure to it. I’m sure the bass players here know what I’m referring to even with my semi vague description of it.
Rime Of the Ancient Mariner The epic that they have been unable to top ever since. Just a outstanding slice of Metal, that seems to sum up everything the band were striving for ..up to this point anyways. The end of the mid section when Nicko gradually brings the band back in to the crunching guitars....as good as it gets for me. 5/5 I don't think Maiden ever topped this album. The artwork, songs, ensuing tour......they were at their absolute peak. Sometimes...I think my favourite Bruce era album is Piece Of Mind. But one song lets it down....and although the rest match Powerslave....as a whole, Powerslave edges it for me. Powerslave (1984) 5/5
So far.... 1 Powerslave 5/5 2 Iron Maiden 5/5 3 Piece Of Mind 5/5 4 The Number Of The Beast 4/5 5 Killers 4/5
Powerslave album: There's a lot to say about this album. Many considerate to be Fillerslave. I do not however because to me "Flash" "Duelists" and "Losfer Words" are every bit as good as "Aces" "2 Mins" and so forth. This goes to show how monumental and influencing Live After Death was. The Powerslave tour was so huge it became legendary and also a bit mythic. With the cover art featuring a pyramid, a large object to behold as well as the Egyptian theme, you recall movies from the Golden Age that were in their own right epic and full of grandeur. Also with two fairly long songs to close it out, the album just seems more epic than those that came before when in reality it isn't. Imagery can be really powerful. Its a well produced album and everything just seems to fall in place. Aces High (5/5) 2 Mins (4.75/5) Losfer Words (4/5) Flash of the Blade (5/5) The Duelists (5/5) Back in the Village (3/5) Powerslave (4/5) Rime of the Ancient Mariner (5/5)
This is cool story from Sacramento July 4th, 1985 show where Nicko jumped into the swimming pool during "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner". The video is taken from Live After Death-dvd (History of Iron Maiden Part 2):
