Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark

[quote="Lari"]

Alex Dee Rokket wrote:

Whatever they were going for, I don't think it worked. It's not that great.

Sadly - true in my case too - for the entire album!

I kinda knew it beforehand thru my gut feeling that once they had discovered that sound they introduced in 'A Matter Of Life And Death' there's no turning back, it will be a Prog parade from thereon and it did, it was downhill from there and FINAL FRONTIER was a dog... like Metallica when they released 'LOAD' all of the subsequent albums sounded like 'LOAD' or at least it had 'LOAD' elements to it.

Missed those days when a band tries their utmost capacity to sound different after each release, Maiden WAS a prime example but whether you have to Agree with me or not, Maiden stagnated and got lazy... sad to say that their Last Good Album was 2000's BRAVE NEW WORLD

You want Proof? Live Audience don't get that excited whenever they lift a song from their last 3 Albums onstage, because catchy riffs and memorable hooks are two of the key ingredients of a great song

I belong to the minority that likes this new progressive style they've taken up with the last few releases. A Matter of Live and Dead is a great, grabbing record with fantastic guitar riffs and solos. I especially like it's variety. Same thing can be said about Final Frontier, though the arrangements aren't that good (exception: When The Wild Wind Blows). I agree with you, EmoElmo, in one point: These new songs aren't good live material (exception: When The Wild WInd Blows). Why? I think, they are too complicated to sing and dance along. These tracks are great, if you just want to enjoy some good music and you should do nothing but listen to these, to be able appreciate the records. This isn't possible in a life audience where you want nothing but to rock. And consequently, these songs don't please the crowd as well as the good old stuff does, which doesn't signify that the new records are bad.

Dellocatus wrote:

I belong to the minority that likes this new progressive style they've taken up with the last few releases. A Matter of Live and Dead is a great, grabbing record with fantastic guitar riffs and solos. I especially like it's variety. Same thing can be said about Final Frontier, though the arrangements aren't that good (exception: When The Wild Wind Blows). I agree with you, EmoElmo, in one point: These new songs aren't good live material (exception: When The Wild WInd Blows). Why? I think, they are too complicated to sing and dance along. These tracks are great, if you just want to enjoy some good music and you should do nothing but listen to these, to be able appreciate the records. This isn't possible in a life audience where you want nothing but to rock. And consequently, these songs don't please the crowd as well as the good old stuff does, which doesn't signify that the new records are bad.

I agree. I like the new stuff alot. I think the Final Frontier is an excellent record.

I dig FEAR OF THE DARK. Definitely a step up from NO PRAYER and certainly preferable to anything from the Blaze era. I'd rank it somewhere in the middle of the pack.

...shoot, I even like "Wasting Love" off of that album.

Dellocatus wrote:

I think, they are too complicated to sing and dance along. These tracks are great, if you just want to enjoy some good music and you should do nothing but listen to these, to be able appreciate the records. This isn't possible in a life audience where you want nothing but to rock. And consequently, these songs don't please the crowd as well as the good old stuff does, which doesn't signify that the new records are bad.

Well, A good song is a good song, Be it uber-complicated or ultra-catchy, it doesn't matter.
Dream Theater Plays 100 times more complicated than them yet their songs stick in to my head like Nursery Rhymes

When you go the Prog direction that doesn't mean it has to be intricate all the time to the point of ruining the whole song structure. When a songwriter or singer 'connects' to the listener, whether its a live audience or just a kid sitting alone in his room, that means you wrote a good song, plain and simple.

When more than 70 percent of whole Metaldom says FINAL FRONTIER is not that spectacular, there must be something wrong, right?

The Final Frontier is a good album, I find it quite memorable.

I also appreciate longer song forms, I don't have attention deficit disorder and I'm not stuck in the 1980's.

EmoElmo wrote:

Dellocatus wrote:

I think, they are too complicated to sing and dance along. These tracks are great, if you just want to enjoy some good music and you should do nothing but listen to these, to be able appreciate the records. This isn't possible in a life audience where you want nothing but to rock. And consequently, these songs don't please the crowd as well as the good old stuff does, which doesn't signify that the new records are bad.

Well, A good song is a good song, Be it uber-complicated or ultra-catchy, it doesn't matter.
Dream Theater Plays 100 times more complicated than them yet their songs stick in to my head like Nursery Rhymes

When you go the Prog direction that doesn't mean it has to be intricate all the time to the point of ruining the whole song structure. When a songwriter or singer 'connects' to the listener, whether its a live audience or just a kid sitting alone in his room, that means you wrote a good song, plain and simple.

When more than 70 percent of whole Metaldom says FINAL FRONTIER is not that spectacular, there must be something wrong, right?

It is my opinion Iron Maiden could have released Powerslave for the first time in lieu of The Final Frontier and some maiden fans wouldnt be happy...

EmoElmo wrote:

When a songwriter or singer 'connects' to the listener, whether its a live audience or just a kid sitting alone in his room, that means you wrote a good song, plain and simple.

And that's where I don't agree with you. In my opinion, there are songs that work live great, although they are quite boring on a record, and, inversely, songs that sound catchy on a record but don't work live at all. It's something everyone here should at least once have witnessed - that someone gets on one hand disappointed by one of his favourite songs performed live and on the other hand gets surprised by another one which he hadn't really noticed so far...

Dellocatus wrote:

EmoElmo wrote:

When a songwriter or singer 'connects' to the listener, whether its a live audience or just a kid sitting alone in his room, that means you wrote a good song, plain and simple.

And that's where I don't agree with you. In my opinion, there are songs that work live great, although they are quite boring on a record, and, inversely, songs that sound catchy on a record but don't work live at all. It's something everyone here should at least once have witnessed - that someone gets on one hand disappointed by one of his favourite songs performed live and on the other hand gets surprised by another one which he hadn't really noticed so far...

.
I'm probably the only one who prefers their "prog" material over classic albums. Sure its not that memorable (i.e you have to actually listen to an album a couple of times), but when it clicks, the songs open up a whole new level of enjoyment. The type of grower albums that I can listen to over time not getting bored.

I'd sign your post with the exception of the first sentence.
Considering our age, we are probably more likely to get warm with this prog style. In fact, it was A Matter of Life and Death that got me into metal in 2006. So that's why I love Maiden that much, no matter wheter they play „old” or „new” stuff.

EmoElmo wrote:

Missed those days when a band tries their utmost capacity to sound different after each release.

They still do. Compare 'The Final Frontier' to 'Piece of Mind' or even 'Brave New World'. Totally different.

EmoElmo wrote:

Maiden WAS a prime example but whether you have to Agree with me or not, Maiden stagnated and got lazy.

Opinions.

There's no need for the "whether or not you agree with me, I'm right" crap. Anyway, I disagree with you entirely. The songs from their last two albums are far more complex than anything they did in the past. How does that make them lazy?

Fear of the Dark, the song, was the first Maiden song I ever heard, and it's also one of my favourites - this is definitely a great album, very underrated.


I agree with Megatron as well - EmoElmo, I'm sorry, but you come off as one of those typical, pessimist fans that want each and every band to live in the past and re-capture past efforts. No offence, but that sort of commentary always bugged me.

I said I didn't enjoy the first half of the last album, but I actually like the new progressive direction of the band.

I think A Matter of Life and Death is the best album Maiden ever put out. Period. Or at least just as good as Powerslave or any other classic Maiden record.

I probably like the newer Maiden stuff about as much as I like the "classics," and in some cases perhaps a bit more. Blasphemy, I know. No, I don't think it's the greatest thing they've ever done, and it's probably the weakest album they've done since getting back with Bruce and Adrian, but The Final Frontier has some excellent tracks on it. "Isle of Avalon," "Starblind," "The Talisman" and "The Man Who Would Be King" are all great and memorable songs in my opinion, while the others range from "average" to "very good." Overall, it's a good album.

I seem to have the opposite view of a lot of others: I find the longer and more "epic" songs to be more interesting and memorable than I do the shorter "rock" songs. The first half of The Final Frontier just seems a bit bland to me, but when it lurches into Epic Mode™ around track 6, that's when it grabs me and it sounds like they're playing what comes natural instead of trying to crank out audience pleasing material. Stuff like "El Dorado" and "Mother of Mercy" just sounds very generic to me. If you're going to go all epic and prog on us, you might as well go nuts.

But all things considered I can think of more good than bad about the last few albums. The high points are very high and the lows never drop as low as the low points of the early '90s material at least. Overall I think Maiden are a great example of how a veteran metal band can mature with class while still retaining the things that made them great in the first place.

Lari wrote:

I think A Matter of Life and Death is the best album Maiden ever put out. Period. Or at least just as good as Powerslave or any other classic Maiden record.

I AGREE! I love that album, and I enjoy it just as much as my other favourites, including Poerslave - you know, it always kinda' bugged me that an album's "classic" status automatically elevates it above any new release, no matter how good that new release may be - well, I guess it's because that particular album had more influence at the time of release - today, we've seen it all, so there's nothing really groundbreaking, yet there's tons of awesome stuff.

A Matter Of Life & Death is possible my favorite Maiden album, just a great, great album. People that get the album will agree how excellent it is. The Final Frontier is a top 5 Maiden album and an excellent album! The song work very well live. All of the post-reunion albums are just as good as the classic era stuff.

Fear was a step up from No Prayer! The title song is a concert staple, one of the three they always play (the other two being Iron Maiden of course and Hallowed). Unfortunately it does have filler on it. All of the 90's albums have filler, something they didn't have on the first 7 albums. Fortunately they got away from filler when Bruce and Adrian returned. Unfortunately they were sort of lost in the 90's - Adrian left, then Bruce. Steve went though a rough divorce, it all adds up to filler on those 4 albums.

Anyway, I guess FOTD could be considered under-rated. It is the best Maiden album that is not classic era or post-reunion.

I like Fear of the Dark. I even like No Prayer for the Dying.

It's taken me literally decades to warm to Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. To me, those albums are where they sound like they're having and identity crisis.


Ah well, Iron Maiden is sort of like sex, bad Iron Maiden is still good!

I personally love ' A Matter of Life and Death', I love what they are doing now, if they had gone and reattempted to recreate 'Piece of Mind' or any other classic Maiden platter, it would have sounded forced. I think this is a natural progression, the band especially Steve Harris has been very vocal about his love for prog bands such as YES, Jethro Tull and Genesis, to name a few, so it is not a big shock they chose to combine those influences with their sound.

I pretty much love all Maiden releases, and I never understood the hate against Fear of the Dark.

I listen to the post-Brave New World albums as often as the 80s albums, and I think Final Frontier may be the best of the more recent ones. I couldn't care less if some or even most metalheads don't like Iron Maiden's recent direction. It works for me!

I think if you put the best songs from Fear of the Dark and No Prayer together you would get a great album.
About the newer stuff. Brave New World gives me nothing, except maybe The Nomad which is okay for me. But songs like For the Greater Good of God, The Legacy, Dance Of Death or Paschendale are great. And I do not think they are that much more prog than some of the 80s stuff. I also needed lots of time to get used to Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son.

kmorg wrote:

I pretty much love all Maiden releases, and I never understood the hate against Fear of the Dark.

I think the majority here seem to lean toward it being an "okay" album, just not quite up to their usual level.

I'm having a REALLY hard time understanding the hate toward The Final Frontier. I've been a Maiden fan since 1982 and I love it. I guess Maiden fans are more close-minded these days.

S.D. wrote:

kmorg wrote:

I pretty much love all Maiden releases, and I never understood the hate against Fear of the Dark.

I think the majority here seem to lean toward it being an "okay" album, just not quite up to their usual level.

I'm having a REALLY hard time understanding the hate toward The Final Frontier. I've been a Maiden fan since 1982 and I love it. I guess Maiden fans are more close-minded these days.

It's only the ones that are stuck in the 80's and think anything that isn't classic ear Maiden sucks. For the most part, the younger fans love both eras. Although I did hear a few younger fans (standing near me in the arena before the show) talking about the classic era the way emo talks about the post-reunion era!

On Fear Of The Dark, I did notice that it gets a lot more love in England than in the US. Several people I talked to said it was their favorite Maiden album. They also got into Maiden during that No Prayer/Fear era and those were their first Maiden albums and they played them over and over and then got the 7 classic era albums.

thejokeriv wrote:

S.D. wrote:

kmorg wrote:

I pretty much love all Maiden releases, and I never understood the hate against Fear of the Dark.

I think the majority here seem to lean toward it being an "okay" album, just not quite up to their usual level.

I'm having a REALLY hard time understanding the hate toward The Final Frontier. I've been a Maiden fan since 1982 and I love it. I guess Maiden fans are more close-minded these days.

It's only the ones that are stuck in the 80's and think anything that isn't classic ear Maiden sucks. For the most part, the younger fans love both eras. Although I did hear a few younger fans (standing near me in the arena before the show) talking about the classic era the way emo talks about the post-reunion era!

These younger fans would like to see a reincarnation of the classic era. Just because the couldn't be part of it, because they are too young. I'd appreciate another more classic Maiden album too, though I like the progressive style. But as there are more and more newcomers picking up exactly this style of metal (e.g. Steelwing) it doesn't matter wheter Maiden do their own thing or not. And that's something I like Maiden for - they don't care about what others might say and just do what they want to. And with this, their albums are always of a high quality - it doesn't sound forced but fresh. And that's great!