After a stable period in Iron Maiden’s lineup, the boat was
\nshaken yet again when guitarist Adrian Smith departed after eight
\nyears. Having recently launched his own solo career in parallel to
\nIron Maiden, singer Bruce Dickinson discovered guitarist Janick
\nGers for his own group – and quickly, Gers became the new hired axe
\nin Iron Maiden.<\/p>\n
Creatively, though, Maiden were on a bit of a tailspin. Their
\nprevious disc,
\nSeventh Son Of A Seventh Son<\/i>, polarized their fans,
\nespecially through their continued use of synthesizers in their
\nmusic. Also, while the album was a commercial success, it was not
\nup to the kind of standards the band had set for themselves.<\/p>\n
In this regard,
\nNo Prayer For The Dying<\/i>, the eighth studio release from Iron
\nMaiden, should be taken with a grain or two of salt. After all,
\nthis was a band in regrouping mode, trying to see how their newly
\nrevamped lineup worked together in the studio with a new batch of
\nsongs. And, looking at the disc from a distance, it was an
\nimprovement over
\nSeventh Son<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Yet after repeated listenings to this disc, one tends to walk
\naway from it feeling rather unsatisfied. On previous discs, Iron
\nMaiden gave the listener an audio and mental workout, challenging
\nthe listener on many levels. With this disc, though, the
\nsongwriting is a bit more lightweight, and the lyrics don’t exactly
\ngive the listener reason to think.<\/p>\n
Things start out on a slightly positive note with “Tail Gunner,”
\na track which seems to revisit the aerial battlefields first seen
\non “Aces High,” but without the lead guitar bite which Iron Maiden
\nhad become known for. It’s hard to tell whether Gers’s addition is
\nat fault or whether Dave Murray had an off day in the solos
\ndepartment – even after all these years, it’s almost impossible for
\nme to tell who is playing which solo just on hearing them. Still,
\nit was a partial return to form for the band.<\/p>\n
Then, there are the two singles from this one. First is “Holy
\nSmoke,” a track which dares to take on televangelism from a
\nskeptic’s point of view. Good idea, poorly written song, weak
\nlyrics. I’m all for slamming Jimmy Swaggart and the whole bunch of
\nfakers who are fleecing people in the name of God (and, brother,
\nwait ’till
\nthese<\/i> bastards get His final room service bill), but I
\nexpect a little more\u2026 well, more fire and brinstone against
\nthem. This is almost the audio equivalent of a ruler across the
\nknuckles.<\/p>\n
Then, there is “Bring Your Daughter\u2026 To The Slaughter,”
\neasily the worst song Iron Maiden has ever recorded. Why they even
\ntook this one on is beyond me, and to this day remains a song I
\ncringe at. What a load of shit.<\/p>\n
Speaking of shit, we come to the unfortunately titled “Public
\nEnema Number One,” a great song with a disastrous name. Honestly,
\nanyone going into this track is going to expect something along the
\nlines of “Bring Your Daughter\u2026” or any number of the joke
\nB-sides the band recorded instead of a solid, all-out rocker of a
\nnumber.<\/p>\n
In fact,
\nNo Prayer For The Dying<\/i> does indeed have its share of songs
\nlike this – “Fates Warning,” “The Assassin,” and the title track –
\nbut they, too, seem to lack some of the bite which set earlier Iron
\nMaiden albums apart from the pack. The end result isn’t disastrous,
\nbut it is a tad disappointing.<\/p>\n
The other notable thing about this album is Dickinson’s vocals –
\nwhich sound more ragged than they had to this point. Granted, you
\ncan’t keep screaming your lungs out day in and day out for eight
\nyears without doing some damage, but even so, hearing this was a
\ntad shocking. The perils of growing older, I guess.<\/p>\n
\nNo Prayer For The Dying<\/i> does portray a band in flux, but
\nshowing signs of recovery even with weak moments littering their
\npath. It isn’t the greatest Iron Maiden album ever recorded, but
\nit’s also hardly their worst. Just don’t expect to come away from
\nthis one feeling fully satisfied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5725],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-38102","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-iron-maiden","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38102"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}