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Listen to most of all Motorheads albums and love them, On Parole was a good album for when it came out. As far as Maiden's Book of Souls will let you know, going to listen to it today while at work. Had to be in at 7 today :P but at least I have the office to myself till 8.

Ok cool! I'm going to Liverpool on Saturday so i'll pick the albums up then.

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My thoughts on Book Of Souls: As with many Iron Maiden albums since Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son there is a lot of filler material here. Unfortunately this becomes a huge problem for a two disc album and the second disc in particular is entirely forgettable. There are high points, the title track is particularly noteworthy feeling almost like a sequel to Powerslave though with Maiden's more progressive modern sound. Sadly however the negatives far outweigh these glittering reminders of what once was. Book Of Souls is an improvement on Final Frontier...but not by enough to ensure regular rotation for most fans of this tired old beast.

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Upon hearing that Tears of a Clown was supposed to be a song about Robin Williams, I finally got motivated to listen to "Book of Souls". I was pretty dissapointed to find that is was essentially without content as a portrait of an icon. I really liked "A matter of Life and Death" and enjoyed seeing Maiden a few years ago, but my interest in the band is coming to an end. It's for sure a tight band with a huge and heavy sound, but I'm coming to the conclusion that they are unpardonably conservative, artistically speaking.

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My favorite is The Number of the Beast. I am a big Clive Burr fan, though Nicko is a force of nature himself. To stick with an ailing bandmate to finish an Album says a lot about metal brotherhood. That they waited until his death to talk about watching him debilitate, respecting his wishes say a lot to me as well.

Piece of Mind will always be a very close second, almost hard to separate. Made me a Nicko fan as well. The only things Ive heard from Iron Maiden and thought bleh, was Black Bart Blues,and Sheriff of Huddersfield. Which may have contained some inside joke I didnt get at all. Oh and listening with Nicko "radio" was pretty bad too.

I dont think there are any bad Iron Maiden Albums

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5 minutes ago, MacabreEternal said:

Oh come on, X-Factor and Virtual XI are appalling and indefensible.

Blaze certainly wasnt the signature sound we where used to, but if you listen to them not wishing they where like other Maiden albums, there where not that bad. Kind of raw like the first two. He didnt nail every single note, but I still like them as a whole.  It is odd for a Maiden album to have dud song on it though.  You cant find these in the States.

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On 10/10/2016 at 0:51 AM, FatherAlabaster said:

My first "metal" shirt was a hand me down Motley Crue "Dr. Feelgood" T-shirt that I wore everywhere despite never owning a Motley Crue album. In my defense, I was eleven. No pictures of this exist.

I wore a Dr Feelgood shirt to dinner with True Belief this evening. True story. 

As for 'Book of Souls', yeah, I know what everyone means. It's pretty good, but it's also really unexciting. There is no way it's competing with the 'must play' pile of my CDs. I love the last song about the blimp exploding, and the rest is cool, but it's not very compelling. Not sure what they were thinking about the double CD release idea. As usual it was a case of stripping away the weakest 5 songs and putting the whole thing on a single CD. 

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And just like that you lose credibility my dude. MetalForum is a glam-free zone lol. You're right about Book Of Souls it's not intrinsically bad, certainly I like it more then Final Frontier. It's just not an exciting enough listen and grows stale quickly.

 

I would sum it up like this: Book Of Souls is the Maiden album you listen to maybe once a year. Neither great nor bad it's a midling album that can give you a bit of a traditional metal fix. Killers is the Maiden album you throw on once a month. It never gets old and even when you know all the words and could hum the guitar parts you're having the time of your life hearing it again.

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Ahahah fun how you have zero tolerance for glam metal!

I really liked "Book of Souls", but I see your points... I also have to say that I enjoyed opener "If Eternity Should Fail" so much that all the other tunes on the album almost became redundant ahah

I was initially let down by "Empire of the Clouds"... It made me think of the worst Savatage episodes... you know, those child-like piano parts... kinda boring... 

But it did grow on me over time!

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What can I say? I don't get it. In my experience music is an afterthought for glam bands their primary concern a marketable image. I suppose it's campy fun but power metal does that better and with more substance.

 

If Eternity Should Fail is the highlight from Book Of Souls for mine - proof Maiden do still have that one really good song in them.

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My favorite are undoubtedly "The Number of the Beast" and "Piece of Mind". If I had to pick one... it'd be "Piece Of Mind". I love every track! Even "Still Life", "Quest For Fire", "Sun and Steel" and "To Tame a Land"!

I don't understand why people complain about the second half of "Piece Of Mind"...

"TNOTB" is the fundamental one, being the first with Bruce, but "Gangland" slightly sucks eheheh.

The one I like most with Di Anno on vocals is... the first one! 

As for the Blaze albums: I think "The X Factor" is a pretty decent album, whereas more than half of "Virtual XI" belongs to fuckin' Mars. There should be a law about how many consecutive times you can repeat a refrain.

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My favorite are undoubtedly "The Number of the Beast" and "Piece of Mind". If I had to pick one... it'd be "Piece Of Mind". I love every track! Even "Still Life", "Quest For Fire", "Sun and Steel" and "To Tame a Land"!

I don't understand why people complain about the second half of "Piece Of Mind"...

"TNOTB" is the fundamental one, being the first with Bruce, but "Gangland" slightly sucks eheheh.

The one I like most with Di Anno on vocals is... the first one! 

As for the Blaze albums: I think "The X Factor" is a pretty decent album, whereas more than half of "Virtual XI" belongs to fuckin' Mars. There should be a law about how many consecutive times you can repeat a refrain.

 

Piece of Mind is my least favorite with Dickinson. It's too anthemic and doesn't have anywhere near the degree of instrumental flourishes as the other albums. There is a lot of filler, and just seems restrained.

 

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using Tapatalk

 

 

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