Iron Maiden's The Journeyman

I had some time before my Remedies class, so I figured I'd do up a quick post.  I've been listening to old reliable Iron Maiden recently, and particularly one of my favorite songs by them, The Journeyman, from Dance of Death (2003).

Not a bad video actually
(except for the 3:00 intro, skip this part)

The song is one of their slower ones -- this does not mean that it is a pussy song though -- it's very solid.  It has some really good guitar melodies and when it "opens up" it has a kind of cheesy chorus, but is memorable, pretty badass and straightforwardly epic.  It is easy to sing along with.  The guitar solos aren't anything special, but they are nifty -- nifty gifties.

The song just kinds of hums along, and could definitely be the backdrop for some kind of movie montage -- like a person remembering something that happened in some distant place and time.

I really like the acoustic in the song, and Steve Harris' bass helps drive the song forward at points.  It's quite beautifully composed actually -- clean and elegant.

Favorite lyrics:

        And the fragment remains of our memories

      And the shadows we made with our hands

      Deeper grey, come to form all the colors of the dawn

      ...

      In your life you may choose desolation
      And the shadows you build with your hands
      If you turn to the light, that is burning in the night
      Then this Journeyman's day has begun


Summed Up: A clean and elegant song that is "straightforwardly" epic.

Iron Maiden: Brave New World

So I was cleaning my apartment today, so I set my iPod to shuffle. After a few songs, the song Ghost of the Navigator by Iron Maiden came on, and it reminded of how much I love their album Brave New World... so much so that I turned off shuffle mode and played Brave New World through in its entirety. Epic.



So of course I have to write a blog post about one of their better albums (I can't say "best" albums, because they have so damn many "best albums"... Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Powerslave, to name a few). Here is the brief history of Brave New World.

Once upon a time, Bruce Dickinson left Iron Maiden, in 1993, and everyone thought the end was near for sure. But, Iron Maiden released two albums after his departure, X Factor (1995) and Virtual XI (1998). You will never hear me say this again about Iron Maiden probably... but those albums were pretty bad. The only good songs to come from the Blaze Bayley era (Iron Maiden's singer from 1994-1999) were The Clansman and Sign of the Cross. Some other songs which didn't suck, but were maybe average at best during Bayley's time were The Angel and the Gambler (meh), and Man on the Edge (double meh).

Needless to say, from the perspective of any Iron Maiden fan, the return of Bruce Dickinson in 1999 was a super huge relief. He reassured the world that they would not have to commit world-suicide. People were happier, because they now knew for sure that Y2k was not going to happen. All was well. Bruce Bruce and the Iron Maiden gang followed up on their promise of world peace and released Brave New World in 2000. It was, and is, epic as all hell.

Brave New World (2000)

Brave New World, in my opinion, was Maiden's last album to have an edge throughout, although it still was pretty produced. After Brave New World, Maiden has released three albums to date (Dance of Death, A Matter of Life and Death, and The Final Frontier). These three are certainly more produced, which is why I don't like them as much. I like that raw.. live feel.. to music. I don't like pumping beats through some computer so the pitch is perfect, etc (Metallica is guilty of this), and the timing is perfect to the atom (I'm pretty sure that Computers are almost able to keep time as well as Neil Peart).

But anyway, you should go out and download Brave New World, or at least check it out somewhere online (youtube maybe?). Favorite songs on Brave New World (other than all of them): Ghost of the Navigator, Brave New World, Blood Brothers, Out of the Silent Planet, The Thin Line Between Love and Hate.

Iron Maiden: The Di'Anno Years

So being as Iron Maiden is the biggest and most well known band in the entire world, and being as everyone outside of the Eastern Bloc is an Iron Maiden fan, I figured I would put up a post about my favorite band. (actually, joking aside, I think Maiden is huge in the Eastern Bloc... I just like ripping on Communism)


But anyway, I was just listening to their first two albums with singer Paul Di'Anno, and every time I am freggin' surprised at how awesome those albums are. Amongst coffee-table metal fans, however, it's not that his time with Maiden isn't well acclaimed -- it just goes largely unknown.

Paul Di'Anno being badass.

Iron Maiden's "first" singer from 1978-81.

Iron Maiden's first LP was the self-titled Iron Maiden (1980). Of course the album is of epic-mega proportions. When we look back upon the 20th Century in the years to come, it will surely be one of the game-changing moments of the century, along with the rise of Communism, the Great Depression, the two World Wars,  the Civil Rights movement, the 1984 film Red Dawn, Rocky IV, and the consequent fall of Communism.

Iron Maiden introduced us to the songs Prowler, Remember Tomorrow, Running Free, Phantom of the Opera, and (amongst others) of course, IRON MAIDEN!

The band's second major release came in 1981 with Killers. The album was slightly less epic than the first, but still ranks up there amongst major 20th Century events, such as the Apollo 11 mission, the Vietnam War, the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, and Super Bowl XV. This album gave us Wrathchild, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Killers, and Twilight Zone.

However, Paul Di'Anno's time with the band ended shortly after Killers. He couldn't foresee, indeed no one could, the even more epic arrival of singer Bruce Dickinson. For while Di'Anno was an awesome man, Dickinson was (and still is) indeed a god on the vocals instrument. And I mean after all, Paul Di'Anno aged into looking like a fat douche anyway.

Paul Di'Anno looking like a douche. Circa sometime more recently.