Iron Maiden ‘Killers’ and ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’

Didn’t want to threadcrap the ‘Piece of Mind’ digital mastering thread so I thought I’d start a new one.

After comparing masterings of ‘Piece of Mind’ recently, it’s put me on a bit of a Maiden kick. So I thought I’d listen to, what I consider to be, the two weaker albums of the 80-88 classic period.

After listening to each album a few times over the past couple of days, I decided to make this thread



Killers

I always thought ‘Wrathchild’, ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ & ‘Purgatory’ were absolutely fantastic tracks.

‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ was the first ‘Paul Di’Anno period’ track I heard.

In 1982 I was 12, the only Maiden I’d heard up to this point was ‘Run to the Hills. I borrowed ‘The Number of the Beast’ from a school friend, ‘taped it’ and proceeded to fall head over heels in love with the album. Hungry for more, I asked him if he had any other Iron Maiden albums (always a greedy boy), he didn’t, but he did lend me this beauty.....

Various - Axe Attack Vol II *


This compilation had ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ on it. I absolutely loved the track, but was confused by the vocals, this wasn’t the same singer, what on earth was going on? My friend explained the Paul/Bruce thing. Time went by and my friends next door neighbour, who had a huge LP collection, lent me the Maiden debut. I ‘taped it’ and I played it and I loved it (well, the first six tracks, title track and Charlotte do nothing for me)

As the years went by, I bought each Maiden album as they were released and loved each one of them. I finally bought ‘Killers’ in 1987. By this time, being more into Van Halen, Kiss, Metallica, Megadeth and ‘Hair Metal’, I didn’t really give it much of a chance and just thought it was ok and apart from the three tracks previously mentioned, everything else was average at best.

Over the years my opinion improved slightly but it was still my least favourite of the 80-86 period.

As previously mentioned, over the past few days I’ve been listening to it quite a bit and I’m amazed how fantastic the whole album is. What on earth was wrong with me for all these years, it’s such a superb album, every single song is .... Well, I’m running out of superlatives to use, but it’s just great. The title track especially, marvellous stuff.

It’s just so strange that an album I’ve known for years suddenly becomes more appealing.



Seventh Son of a Seventh Son

I never thought much of this one and, perhaps, it was a victim of my changing musical tastes. I would still buy Maiden albums upon release, but instead of being in constant rotation, they were played once or twice, then sat on the shelf.

I imagine a lot of Maiden fans being slack jawed at this, seeing as SSOASS is quite the favourite amongst Maiden fans.

I have, however, always thought ‘Moonchild’** and ‘The Evil That Men Do’ were great tracks. I even popped when Maiden played ‘Moonchild’ for the encore at Twickenham 2008***

Anyway, after listening again I really enjoyed most of it, in fact I added six tracks to my Maiden playlist, leaving out only ‘The Clairvoyant’ and ‘The Prophecy’.

The title track is particularly amazing, it’s some truly great stuff, I clearly didn’t give this album the time it deserved back then.


This has certainly whetted my appetite and might perhaps make me re-evaluate some lesser enjoyed albums.






*this album led me to investigate Rush, Def Leppard and Black Sabbath via my school friends neighbour. This then opened the door to discovering a whole new world of Rock/Metal (A big thank you to that chap, wherever you are, without whom I would have never had access to so many great bands)

**this track sounds rather similar to ‘Inside The Electric Circus’ by W*A*S*P

*** which was probably the last gig I attended, not by choice, just mind stuff prevents me now

 

I always though Killers was a great album, and bought the remaster very recently, having not listened to it for some 20+ odd years.....my view is still the same. The 2 Di'Anno albums are brilliant...really really enjoying them again....however I came interested in these two albums at time of release.....I can imagine if you came in with a Dickinson background they may sound a bit more "primitive" and maybe a bit harder to admire as part of the band catalogue.

Seventh Son - looking to re-assess this one when it gets re-issued (in March apparently). I was not a fan of Can I Play With Madness so we got off to a bad start on that one.....my recollection of that album and tour (Certainly at Donnington and the following UK tour) is they sounded tired...cant wait to hear this again with fresh ears.

On that note, I am listening to Piece of Mind and Number of the Beast again (due to aforementioned re-issues) and Beast is as I remember, however I am not enjoying Piece of Mind as much as I recall I did previously.....great first half....cant get engaged with the second half.....

 

Great write up.

Seventh son was my first maiden album and I saw 4 shows on the tour 2 nights at hammersmith , one at wembley arena and donington. Listened to the it to death and then picked up all the other albums.

As I bought the pre-Seventh son album, Killers was probably the last album I picked up as it lacked any of the tracks that were considered 'hits' or part of the setlist. But over the years I've grown to enjoy it more and more probably due to it being the least listened to out of the early back catalogue for me at the time.

 

Always loved "Killers" right down to its artwork. In fact I remember those posters being all over our city. Being too young to know much about music - let alone about "metal" - I just studied the picture and was deeply fascinated by it. Maybe this colours my judgement but I like it better than "Iron Maiden".

"7th Son" on the other hand felt like the crowning achievement, a circle going round. From then on it would get rocky. But.. worthwhile! As usual with Maiden.

 

I always loved the debut despite its, as you said, primitive sound. In fact I never felt the same way about the production as Steve Harris does, it is certainly is raw but I love it.

Perhaps it’s just nostalgia, as it was the second Maiden album I heard at 12 years old and was played on a £100 all in one LP/Tape/Radio combo I had at the time. The only thing that took a little getting used to was the vocals, but having heard the version of ‘Remember Tomorrow’ on the b side to the TNOTB single a little while later, I couldn’t imagine any of the first two album tracks being better with a different vocalist. I realise Bruce has done versions of quite a few of these songs over the years, and don’t hate me for this, I’ve not preferred any of them to the originals.

I’ve seen Maiden three times ‘86, ‘98 and ‘08. I always thought in ‘98 it would have been a such a fantastic chance to dust off some tracks from the first two albums. I think Blaze would have done a sterling job with ‘Prowler’, ‘Remember Tomorrow’, ‘Running Free’, ‘Phantom of the Opera’, ‘Wrathchild’, ‘Purgatory’ and ‘Murders In The Rue Morgue’.

With SSOASS you described how I felt perfectly (although I didn’t see them live on this tour)

‘Piece of Mind’ might have been the best Maiden album ever if ‘Quest For Fire’ and ‘Sun and Steel’ has been replaced with ‘Cross Eyed Mary’ and ‘I’ve Got The Fire’..... But being covers I suppose there was never a chance of that happening, but my word what absolutely brilliant covers they were.

 

NOTB was my intro to IM and I fell head over heals for Maiden (the Riggs covers certainly were a major draw). Then worked backwards from Killers to Iron Maiden. I got off the bus with Somewhere In Time as I couldn't agree with the synthesizers in the music, especially having heard the band state that synths do not belong in metal music...lol. Anyway, Time has passed and I now truly like SSOASS and SIT, a lot actually! I also now love Grace Under Pressure from RUSH too, so I must be going ....whatever. Tastes change as we change.

 

I loved both albums since I first heard them back in the 80s. As a matter of fact, I love them all except for the two with Blaze.

 

better question is...what the hell happened to Maiden AFTER Seventh Son ?
why such sudden drop in quality ? is it just Adrian Smith leaving ? was it just time the well dried ? somebody explain it to me

 

Last night I listened to the two Blaze albums again. Was never a huge fan, thought ‘X Factor’ was better that ‘Virtual XI’. I can’t say they are bad albums at all though, but I realised last night the reason I’ve never liked them that much.

A lot of the songs are just too bloody long. The best example of this is ‘The Angel and the Gambler’. What could have been a great 4-5 minute song is stretched out way too long and just becomes repetitive. Also, this seemed to be the start of songs having that ‘A F G’ type repetive droning bass intro (apologies if I’m wrong on the chords, but I hope it gets across what I’m trying to say).

Maybe this was because CD’s became the main format and Steve Harris didn’t have to worry about only having 45-50 minutes to play with and without Adrian and Bruce to reign him in, these extended intro songs became the norm.

 

I think you’re on to something about Adrian Smith leaving. Steve Harris is one of the greatest songwriters ever in Heavy Metal, but apart from the first two albums where it’s predominantly Harris compositions, Adrian and Bruce have 25-50% of the songwriting 82-88. Janick Gers, whatever your opinion of him, doesn’t seem to have the same level of songwriting ability to fill the gap.

To use an analogy which is sure to please the forum, if Maiden were The Beatles, they became Wings for a few albums when Adrian and Bruce left*


Plus after they left, the songs just became way too long (see my previous post for more on this)

*I love Wings

 

Funny thing is, I loved ‘Somewhere in Time’ at the time and still do to this day. Apart from ‘Deja Vu’ I think it’s an incredibly strong album. The Steve Harris compositions on this album are just brilliant. ‘Alexander the Great’, ‘Caught Somewhere In Time’ and ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’ are tracks I truly love.

I think this was the peak of my Maiden fandom. I saw them on this tour, my second ever gig, and they were amazing (I even enjoyed Samson as support, especially as they played ‘Earth Mother’ the only song I knew). This may well have something to do with why I love this album.

Objectively, I appreciate that ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’ is probably a far better album but by ‘88 my tastes had changed and even to this day I prefer ‘Somewhere in Time’

Curiously I love ‘Turbo’ despite the synths and yet my least favourite Priest album is ‘Ram it Down’. I’m not sure the release date/tastes changing thing applies here though. ‘Turbo’ has excellent songwriting, ‘Ram it Down’ really doesn’t.

I bought ‘Grace Under Pressure’ in 1985 and really liked it. This may have had something to with buying ‘Power Windows’ a few weeks/months earlier though.

 

7th Son was the peak of Maiden. They never reached this level again, and I prefer the debut over Killers.

 

My ‘peak’ for Maiden would be around ‘Live After Death’. Even though I love ‘Somewhere in Time’, the first five studio albums contain almost all of my favourite Maiden tracks.

I totally agree that the debut is better than ‘Killers’, even after my re-evaluation.

 

It was certainly the top of the mountain regarding world success, and I think right there is where the burn out creeps in......they had 3 massive tours to support 3 massive albums (Powerslave, Somewhere & Seventh) with very little time between.

 

Love Killers my favorite Maiden album, or tied with the first one. Both are just perfect. Seventh Son is the best of the later albums. Some cool songs and riffs. Seventh is where i left off. Cool record.

 

I had a very similar experience when I played SSOASS recently. I too only gave this a few listens upon release, even though I really liked the CIPWM single a lot! At the time I guess I was into "lighter" metal and my friends were too. This album is excellent and not nearly the drop off I always thought it was. It rightfully belongs entrenched in their classic run.

 

I agree. They did go on way too long. Those two albums sound very experimental to my ears. The music sounds like it’s going somewhere but never reaches it’s destination. In the latter albums, they seemed to work this issue out.

Blaze is a good singer but doesn’t have the range that Bruce Dickinson has. This made it worse. If they had formed these songs around Blaze’s range they may have been better.

 

Yep, CDs were as responsible as anything for the decline of Maiden. Where 45 minutes and 8 strong tracks was bang on, 78 minutes was just too much to play with. Songs drawn out for way too long and too much filler. I often think that if Where Eagles Dare came out on a album now, it would be 15 minutes long and half of that would be piddling about on the intro. Even an epic like Mariner does not overstay its welcome - no drawn out intro, just straight into the meat of the track. Plenty of other bands suffered a similar fate when presented with the opportunity for CD length albums though.

For me, SSOASS is maiden's last stone cold classic and I would rate every proceeding album a classic too. Killers is perhaps the one that creeps up on you most. When I first listened to it I did not rate it all that highly, particularly after the debut. However, it does heavily reward with repeated listens and I now rate it just a smidge behind the debut.

 

Oh wow, what a great observation. ‘Where Eagles Dare’ is my favourite Maiden track, I’m so glad it didn’t have a two minute bass intro

In fact, I find myself agreeing with everything you’ve said.

I really like ‘AMOLAD’ and ‘TBOS’ but one can but wonder just how much better they could be with some judicious editing and a Martin Birch style production.

I can’t think of another artist that has been around as long as Maiden and that consistently produces great albums, so I hope my comments don’t come across as too negative, as I am still a huge fan of the band.

 

It happens. Couldn't happen to a more rockin' album.

 

The thing is, underneath Blaze is some outstanding music. It seemed to me they brought something extra instrumentally with those 2 albums knowing the vocals weren't optimal.

 

I agree about AMOLAD , edited and Martin's production that album would be a masterpiece imo. I don't understand Maiden I mean their sitting around arranging tunes and Steve or Bruce sez hey how about
we repeat this bit until the kids heads explode. good grief. I wish Bruce would put a stop to it. Steve may run things but Bruce is the reason they play stadiums instead of clubs.
He cant enjoy singing the same dam part over and over add nauseum can he ? Maybe he does.

 

You sir, have hit the nail right on it’s glorious head

 

I was following the band since Piece of mind, and when "7th sons" came out, I must admit I was disapointed.
I know it's a fan favorite, but for the first time Maiden really started to repeat themselves musically:
I didn't accept the fact that the title song was a re-hash of "Rime of the ancient mariner", and that most of the 2nd half of "Infinite dreams" is a recycling of the main riff from "Revelations". I couldn't stand this at the time, and I still can't, even after 30 years of repeated listening. In my ears this album is plagued by these two cases of self-plagiarism.

 

Angel & the Gambler is a turd... maybe Iron Maiden's worst song. But just hit the skip button on that one, and the rest of Virtual XI is very solid, with a handful of great tunes like Futureal, Clansman, Two Worlds Collide...