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Iron Maiden New Album: Book of Souls

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#1 ·
First ever Double Studio Album with 92 minutes of music... and the biggest one ever for Maiden at 18 minutes...

I LOVED Maiden when I was younger and still like them and go see them Live mainly for the Old Stuff... but 18 minute songs... man... I hope I wont fall asleep :)

I dig the Cover :)



source: NEW IRON MAIDEN STUDIO ALBUM “THE BOOK OF SOULS”

The full tracklisting is:

Disc 1
1. If Eternity Should Fail (Dickinson) 8:28
2. Speed Of Light (Smith/ Dickinson) 5:01
3. The Great Unknown (Smith/ Harris) 6:37
4. The Red And The Black (Harris) 13:33
5. When The River Runs Deep (Smith/ Harris) 5:52
6. The Book Of Souls (Gers/ Harris) 10:27

Disc 2
7. Death Or Glory (Smith/ Dickinson) 5:13
8. Shadows Of The Valley (Gers/ Harris) 7:32
9. Tears Of A Clown (Smith/ Harris) 4:59
10. The Man Of Sorrows (Murray/ Harris) 6:28
11. Empire Of The Clouds (Dickinson) 18:01
 
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#6 ·
AAAAAAAAH!!!!

Damn, I don't know about the plain black background, but Eddie looks TERRIFIC!!!

And yeah while the tracklist DOES seem a bit too much; I really have nothing against the late Iron Maiden albums, actually Brave New World is my all time favorite since I got it when I was like 11 years old back in 2000. Still listen to it quite a bit.

Brave New World - 10/10 (my all time favorite album)
Dance Of Death - 8/10 (despite popular opinion, i like this one a lot)
A Matter Of Life And Death - 7/10 (with some pretty good highs!)
The Final Frontier - 6/10 (too much filler, with some pretty good songs at times)

Oh... So the new one is even LONGER and that could mean... Well, worse songs, or maybe just fucking awesome... I don't know.

But yeah, I can't wait to hear something!!!
 
#7 ·
Every second on this will be dimensions better than everything else this year. Maiden is life. I live only for the moment when i hold this vinyl in my hand, put it finally on, and will have multiple eargasms for 92 minutes straight. A double record finishing in an 18 minute Bruce track... I am already fighting back tears of joy. This is my fucking DNA right there.
 
#17 ·
You are incorrect sir.

Fear of the Dark and No Prayer (I'm wearing my No Prayer shirt right now), are both serious sleeper albums. Both those had great songs between the two.

Brave New World was the reunion album everybody hoped for, that album slays. Awesome album.

Dance of Death wasn't as good, but it had it's moments. I liked Rainmaker a lot. Pashcendale and No More Lies are the obvious picks from that album.

The thing about Maiden that will always set them apart, is they 100% sell it hard. Most metal/rock bands at that age only release legacy albums. Like you aren't really supposed to judge them seriously. Ocassionally a good one comes along, like Heaven and Hell "The Devil You Know", but it's mostly just a "good to see they are still at it" thing. I'm a big Priest fan, Angel was OK, but I won't deny the other ones sucked. Rush is probably the only band who is legitimately releasing Grade A legacy material (or at least I thought so when Snakes and Ladders came out). Maidens might not compare to their heyday, but they 100% sell it harder live than other bands, and their legacy material is still a notch above most of their contemporaries.

That is most apparent on the songs on Dance of Death and Final Frontier, both those albums had songs that didn't really show their full potential until you saw them on one of the rocking live albums Maiden is always releasing. The versions on Death on The Road and En Vivo are both better than the studio albums.

 
#15 ·
I think their best days are behind them.
That's like if Jesus got resurrected and people were like, "I think he did his best work a couple millenia ago". Number - Seventh Son are what Heavy Metal is, I would give up all my other metal just to have those albums. No one can compare to that, not even Maiden themselves. Those albums are so legendary they were only meant to happen once to show us all what metal is about.
 
#14 ·
Title and song titles give this the feel of more of a follow up to Chemical Wedding and Tyranny of Souls (which was a good album as well). Not a bad thing.

Dance of Death and A Matter of Life and Death are really underrated. I don't get why people don't like AMOLAD, there are some great songs on there. I wasn't crazy about The Final Frontier, but some songs were great. Mix was godawful though.

That being said, I am always hesitant of double albums being released by legend tier bands, especially after Judas Priest's Nostradamus.

Besides all that, seeing Maiden still release new music puts me in a good mood. Maiden is everything that is right with the universe in my book.
 
#21 ·
Dance of Death and A Matter of Life and Death are really underrated. I don't get why people don't like AMOLAD, there are some great songs on there.
It's usually the other way around, people seem to like AMOLAD, but don't like Dance Of Death.

I prefer DOD :) but the following is good too.

TFF has many filler songs that could have been a bit more thought-out.

The fact that Maiden is now doing stuff spontaniously in the studio, is both a worry and hope. With my experience, you can do the absolute best stuff out of your head, but it's still a gamble. I really hope they record a lot more than they actually use for the album: and don't just use every idea they come up with.
 
#19 ·
I'll buy any and every Maiden album. That said, they haven't written a long song since "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" that I felt actually needed to be that long. Most of their 8-minute songs since Bruce came back have felt like four minutes of material pushed out to eight with lots of repetition.
 
#33 ·
I'm really looking forward to this one. I love Maiden so I'll give it a fair chance when it comes out. I hope this one is a bit more varied than the last 2 though. While they weren't bad I found the songs very samey. It was hard to think of many stand out moments on either album. I don't mind the slower kind of vibe they have been trying out lately but I think they need a few more faster bits thrown in to mix it up a bit.
Anyway if there's a new album that means more tours so I can see them live again. They are one of the best live bands I've seen and I want to catch them as much as I can before they call it a day.
 
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