A Matter of Life and Meh...

So, I'm trying to get back to the habit of blogging by writing down things on little pieces of paper, when I get a blog-idea in my head, similar to the procedure of my Space Outlaw blog, which still awaits part two of the Bad Guys essay, I know!

This isn't on the list strictly, but I'll follow the list from this point on. The list mainly composes of things that irritate me beyond reason, so if I come out as a self-opinionated arrogant bitch from these writings, then so be it!

The first of these things I want to write about is Iron Maiden's latest record, A Matter of Life and Death, for no other reason that I weren't that smashed over by it. Which is odd, because I am usually tossing myself off with glee when a new Maiden record/album is announced. As you might have guessed I'm quite a Maiden fan. I have nearly all their records, and theirs are the most numerous from one single band in my collection, with only Therion and Nightwish on close second places.



I think warning bells should have sounded when I heard rumours of Maiden performing the whole of the album live and only add "oldies" as extras. When i bought the tickets for the concert, I had no idea what the final album would sound like and neither did the rest of the world, so it was too late, in my own book (cause I never refund concert tickets unless I absolutely have to) to make amends.
By October last year, I got my hands on the new record and listened it through. And listened it through again.
On about the third or fourth listen-through I was starting to catch on that there were no solid hits on this one. The only one that even comes close to the goodness and live-capacity of say Aces High is Different World, and it has about as catchy chorus line as The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Don't get me wrong, "Rhyme..." on the Powerslave record is something of the best Harris has ever penned, but the conspicuous lack of a chorus effectively kills an opening song on an album. In that case, These Colours Don't Run and The Longest Day are far better. But they still haven't got the smash-in-your-face quality of Fear of the Dark or Holy Smoke, not to mention Aces High or Number of the Beast.

Considering The Longest Day (based on the 1962 movie with the same name), it is a song about the Normandy landings on D-Day 1944. Okay, Maiden aren't total newbs when it comes to WW2 songs (Aces High, Tailgunner and Run Silent, Run Deep), but this one fails because of the underlying flag-toting becoming too obvious in an embarrasing way. Aces High avoids this because the British were clearly victims in the Blitz, whilst at Normandy, teh Nazis were falling apart. The fact that they make the mistake and call the Nazis the euphemism evil is strange in itself. It seems almost religious. Can this be the same band that made the strangely double-entendre Tailgunner (An ode to 'Bomber' Harris. No relation to Steve Harris, I hope.)?
Secondly, the theme D-Day has been handled much better and with better drive by another band, although not nearly as big as Maiden: Sabaton and their Primo Victoria.
Now, some might say that a song about D-day should be solemn, but if I wanted solemn I'd listen to the Medal of Honour: Allied Assault OST, or the OST from Saving Private Ryan (another flag-toter, where patriotism is so thick it can be cut with a knife, only surpassing the sentimentality of it all. Americans are "rugeddly handsome" and keep on going "in the name of bloody-minded bravado" to paraphrase Yahtzee Croshaw) if I wanted solemn war-music with so much sentimentality it can be cut with a proverbial knife. The Sabaton song is very different. It is all engery and drive and "let's kick the teeth in on those Nazi bastards!". Not very much sentimentality, none actually, and practically no flag-toting. Why is that?

What more on the album? Well, the songs are long, very long. Few clock in on under 5 minutes. Most are round about seven minutes. And my favorite song, For the Greater Good of God, is nearly nine, if I recall correctly. Now, common sense amongst bands holds that unless you are extremely certain people will have LOVED a long song like this, you shouldn't under any circumstances play it live. Maiden get away with it with both aforementioned "Rhyme..." and Fear of the Dark, cause they are strong songs, that both work strangely well live. "Greater good.." does not!
Oddly enough, Sabaton's mid-tempo, eight minute Rise of Evil is fantastic live.

So, all in all, what to say about Maiden's latest record? It isn't bad, by no means. It grows more and more for each time I listen through the record. But that is the problem. By the songs being so well ironed out (pun intended), no one sticks out as particularly good. There are no bad Maiden records. But this is one of the few ones that leave me feeling strangely unfulfilled having listened to it. It isn't because Maiden seem to have gotten political in their old age; they were that on No Prayer for the Dying (Holy Smoke) and already on Killers (Women in Uniform; looking at you Margret Thatcher!). Maiden have shown they can do both political and unpolitical lyrics and music. But to make an entire record with strongly political songs? Is that such a good idea for an almost allegedly unpolitical band? True, I can understand if Tony Blair's brown-tonguing George W. Bush got them as agitated Mrs. Thatcher did in her time, but an entire smegging album? If it is because they wanted to write about all the wrongs in the world (no pun intented there!), they are waking up a bit late. A lot of other bands are already doing it and doing it better, Steve Harris's genuis notwithstanding.
So what is A Matter of Life and Death? Not whether you buy this record or not, that's for certain. Maiden have made a run-of-the-mill record; unusual, for them.

Sadly though, it might have damaged my faith in them for a good time: Dance of Death wasn't so fantastic either, when you think about it.