The Crooked Wanderer

En Vivo!

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist” (you are here, and you made it to the end!)

Coming up in 2024

On December 27, 2023 By bigbadburchIn News2 Comments

I don’t have a ton to discuss but I figured I’d do a quick update on what’s coming to the site next year. For the first while things will go at a routine clip – an album on Monday, a song on Wednesday and then a standalone post about whatever on Friday. That formula will hold for awhile, I don’t have any big series planned until later on in the year.

I had been considering some changes to the regular things I post but I’ve decided against that. It’ll be easier for me to keep with the status quo for now and nothing I was thinking about changing was that big of a deal anyway, the routine will be the easier way forward.

1984

One recurring theme for next year – it’s been 40 years since 1984, and that was probably the most influential year in terms of music and what I listen to, with only 1991 being a rival to that statement. There is no concrete plan for this, but occasionally I will highlight an album or discuss some other aspect of the year. 1984 and its impact will have it own post as well, there’s a lot to go over there.

The next Iron Maiden series

I’m gonna give the gents a bit of “time off” for a bit. The next upcoming series is the song ranking, which in this case will be every original song they wrote. I have already been fiddling with it some but I’m not in a hurry so I expect this to pop up around May or so. I might blitz this one out, just fill the days of the week where nothing else is being posted in order to get it out of the way, I don’t feel like this one benefits from a “once a week” approach.

After that the only other really big one would be a look at the videos, I don’t really have the planned out for this year. I may get started on it, as there’s a lot of material to watch, but the actual series probably won’t start until 2025. I may drop a bootleg run at some point but I’m not in a huge rush for that.

A really dumb idea that will eventually happen

I dropped a small bit about this earlier – I have some dumb and ambitious plan to review every single Neil Young album. I can “limit” myself to studio albums only, but between his regular releases and a handful of “lost” archive albums, I think the count is 51. And no, this doesn’t include CSNY or Buffalo Springfield, only Young with or without Crazy Horse.

I don’t really plan for this to kick off until 2025 but there’s a chance I get it wrapped up and launched in 2024. It’s actually going a little quicker than I anticipated, it’s not like a lot of these require a scholarly dig to review. It’s a lot and it’s probably too much and a real stupid idea, but it’s just stupid enough for me to execute, so it’ll come around at some point.

Other far less dumb ideas

Beyond that I don’t have any grandiose schemes, stuff coming up will be album rankings, song rankings (only a top 20 or so), and talks about various issues in music going on. I’ve put off a lot of discussion as the past few months of the year have really been getting to me and just keeping things going as they have was enough of a challenge. But I’ve reached a fair point of equilibrium now and I’m looking forward into getting into a bit more variety of content with the Maiden live series almost out of the way.

A few other visual and other improvements

One thing I’ve wanted to do since I’ve started is gussy up the site a bit with some visuals, banners and a logo and such. I’m still using the same default picture that came with the theme when I set this up in 2021. I will finally dedicate some time to cleaning up the visuals early next year.

I will also kick off a new feature pretty soon – really it’s just a band index for a central place to catalog the posts and series I’ve made about a single act. Obviously there are tons of Iron Maiden posts, but there are also quite a few on bands like Slayer, Oasis, Metallica, and several others who’ve appeared multiple times. This is more for the benefit of people who show up for the first time, as well as me, so I know what I’ve already written about. This should pop up in the next few weeks as I phase out some old pages and get some old post re-worked, then the band index will come along.

That about covers it for what’s coming up in ’24. I don’t have much left for this year, just the Iron Maiden live album wishlist coming on Friday. Enjoy the rest of the year and we’ll see you in 1984 plus 40.

Iron Maiden – The Live Album Ranking

On December 23, 2023February 11, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series18 Comments

I’ve spent the past 13 weeks going over each Iron Maiden live album, and now at the end of it all it’s time to give them a proper ranking.

I will only be including the full-length, official live albums in this. The EP stuff like Maiden England is out, as is any kind of bootleg. The list on the bottom of this page has a link to the post where I discussed the album in detail.

This ranking is pretty fast and loose, this is not a series of conclusions reached after careful, strained analysis. It’s just a big vibe check more than anything, ranking live albums is kind of ridiculous and I’m only doing it because these guys released 13, and counting.

13 – A Real Live One (1993)

This is easy to rank, pretty much because it sounds like shit. It’s an awful sound capture or mix or whatever. It is potentially interesting given that this does represent well the band’s early ’90’s era which didn’t get hardly any live airing after these tours, but it really hurts this album that the exact same songs from the same tour can be found on another live album. This one is totally skippable.

12 – A Real Dead One (1993)

This companion to the spot below it offered up the band’s classic era and early hits. It sounds way better than the other one. But the performances are a bit lacking in dynamics, the setlist isn’t really inspiring since it’s all stuff you can hear in any number of other places, and almost all of these songs from this tour are found on another live album. This one isn’t a total wash but it doesn’t serve much of a purpose, either.

11 – Nights Of The Dead (2020)

This is the most recent one to date. It’s got a cool theme with the tie in to Day of the Dead. The sound is fine, if not just a hair off. Bruce doesn’t sound his best on here due to illness and it does affect the performance. The setlist is mostly obvious stuff but that’s to be expected from a career-spanning set. A few gems on here and overall it’s a pretty cool album but it has it faults.

10 – Flight 666 (2009)

This is another “hits” set with all but one song from the ’80’s. It all sounds really good and showcases the band in very fine form. It sits a little lower on my rankings because I’m drawn more to the live sets that highlight specific albums. Ranking this one here isn’t meant to be a knock on this album at all, it’s just that others serve my purposes more.

9 – The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter (2017)

A nice package that sums up the tour for this album very well. It does focus on the 2017 version of the tour and I would have preferred the 2016 setlist, but that’s a minor complaint. It’s a good effort and does a good job showcasing the album that this tour was supporting.

8 – The BBC Archives (2002)

This is very cool series of small sets that give us a bit of official material with Paul Di’Anno live. It’s a great look at the early years and even has a few songs with guys that weren’t in the band very long. This is more of a treat for die-hards but it’s executed in splendid fashion, this die-hard is very happy with it.

7 – Live At Donington (1993)

3 live albums in one year and this one renders the others obsolete. This is a complete show from the hallowed festival grounds and has almost all of the songs featured on the other two releases. Stuff here sounds good and it’s the best way to experience ’90’s Maiden, even if it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

6 – Maiden England (1988, 1994, 2013, etc)

Released in different forms several times, the 2013 complete issue is the one to seek out. This captures the band in a prime era for them, on the Seventh Son tour and with a lot of those songs making their way here. The sound is a few steps down from other recordings but it’s still a worthwhile listen. Hard to beat this setlist, even if they forgot to play The Trooper for whatever reason.

5 – Death On The Road (2005)

The live set in support of Dance Of Death is here and it’s a really good offering of the stronger tracks from that album alongside a collection of the band’s usual classic offerings. Paschendale alone is worth the price of admission.

4 – En Vivo! (2012)

This set is pulled from the tour for The Final Frontier album. Beyond just being a showcase for that stuff, this actually breathes new life into those songs and gives a looked-over album some great representation. Great sound, great crowd and everything here clicks.

3 – Rock In Rio (2002)

This offering was the conclusion of the Brave New World tour and the first live release since the band’s reunion in 1999. The album they were touring on was fantastic and it’s featured heavily here, paired with two special songs where Bruce performs Blaze-era material. This was a very exciting album and tour for the band and began a new chapter of their legacy that is the band’s longest and runs to this day.

2 – Beast Over Hammersmith (2002)

This gig from 1982 sat for a decade before an official release in a box set, then 20 years after that it got cut on vinyl for the first (official) time. This set is a total home run, showing off the band on the Beast on the Road tour and letting the world know just how great their new singer Bruce Dickinson is. Killer performances from front to back and it obviously features a lot of early material as they only had 3 albums to work off of back then.

1 – Live After Death (1985)

It’s hard to top the granddaddy of them all and for Iron Maiden live albums, this is it. Their first one is also still their best, capturing the group at their peak in the Powerslave era. It’s a magnificent set and features the band at full energy and performing many of their best tracks.

And that will do it for the live album rankings. I’ll surely be revisiting this one at least once more and maybe many more times. Christmas will be over in a few days but I’ll still put a bow on this series next week with a look at some tours I wish we had live albums for. ‘Till then.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

En Vivo!

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking (you are here)

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

Oasis – Whatever

On December 20, 2023December 20, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week2 Comments

Originally I was going to discuss 2023 a bit more. I decided against that after I got to typing – this year has been a bit of a shit to me personally and I’d rather see it just go the hell away. Instead, I’ll go with what is supposed to be my normal Wednesday routine and talk about a song instead.

Whatever, indeed.

Our song today hails from Oasis, and was their first ever non-album single. We are now 29 years and 1 day removed from its single release, it was a UK Christmas single in 1994. This would do very well for what was about to become a behemoth of British rock, the song went to number 3 on the UK charts and sold over 540,00 copies.

This was recorded as part of the sessions for the debut album Definitely Maybe, and in fact I believe it was released on a few international versions of the album. I can’t immediately corroborate this, so if anyone has more concrete information about this, please share and I’ll be happy to correct this.

The thing that kept Whatever off the debut album was the use of orchestra strings, which were recorded by the London Session Orchestra. Among the players was violinist Wilfred Gibson, who had previously been part of Electric Light Orchestra, as well as contributing to early King Crimson work, among others. Imagine being this guy who had been on decades of mountain-moving work.

But Oasis and the powers that be, likely Alan McGee and Creation Records, decided that Whatever didn’t fit the debut album. I’d honestly say it’s a fair call, this song does stand out as different from the vibe on the record. It might have worked, but Definitely Maybe does work just great as it is, so it’s probably for the best that this is a bonus track.

Our song today isn’t that difficult to go through, most Oasis songs aren’t. It’s an ode to being free and embracing whoever you are, like a lot of Oasis it’s a celebration of the everyday person. It’s an embrace of the free spirit of the brief Britpop time of the mid-90’s where things weren’t as grim and everyone could take on the new form of rock music while still having a good time. It’s a celebration of self, it isn’t overly intellectual and it works pretty well.

The signature part of this song might be at the end, as the last minute or so sees the strings lead the song out. It leads to memes like the one just below, and it sums up the spirit of the song. We aren’t supposed to take it all that seriously, yet in that time for us of the right age in the mid-90’s, this was pretty serious. For a brief moment in time, relatively speaking, Oasis were the voice of a generation.

Now, this song did give primary songwriter Noel Gallagher a bit of a fit – there was a lawsuit from celebrated English act Neil Innes, who contended that this song lifted parts from Innes’ 1973 song How Sweet To Be An Idiot. Oasis management chose to settle, and Innes is listed as a co-writer of Whatever.

This got played out live a fair bit, including during Oasis’ high time of 1996, and the Knebworth set that I go on and on about on here. All in all this is listed as being played 99 times during the band’s career, and was one they were playing on their final tour when shit came to shit and the band imploded. Both Noel and Liam have played this in solo sets post-split.

So at the end of the day we have a Christmas song, although it’s not about Christmas, as if Oasis would ever do that. But we do have a very nice song that didn’t quite fit the album they were putting out and we got this as a bonus single instead. A fine piece of work, if I do say.

Top Ten Albums of 2023

On December 18, 2023December 17, 2023 By bigbadburchIn AOTY 20236 Comments

2023 is almost in the books. It’s now a week to Christmas and also I have the last week of the year off work so I’m very much looking forward to getting this week over with. But I also run a music blog and that requires a certain something around this time of the year – my top 10 albums.

This year was a bit more “quiet” for me, at least in terms of me checking out a ton of new stuff. But it’s still very easy to find 10 worthy picks for the annual list. I’ll go straight into that now, and then Wednesday I’ll do a more detailed “wrap up” of the year for this site, me and music in general.

10: Cannibal Corpse – Chaos Horrific

This was the death metal legends’ 16^th effort and showed that CC have not slowed down with age. They have added a fair bit of technical flair to their offerings, this album gave some of that and also a fair bit of the straight-ahead brutal stuff. Death metal is now nearly 40 years old but no one has kept the strain alive or, uh, dead like Cannibal Corpse.

9: Blur – The Ballad Of Darren

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Blur’s first album in 8 years, but whatever expectations were blown away. This is a tight, cohesive set that offers a range of great tracks and a look at Damon Albarn’s perspective on life at middle age. Several Blur albums can be all over the place but this one holds together really well. I wasn’t expecting to like this one nearly as much as I did, I was caught pretty off-guard by it.

Also – best album cover of 2023. I love that shot, it’s great.

8: Overkill – Scorched

I was fully expecting to like this one and I wasn’t at all disappointed. The 20^th album from the New Jersey thrash legends is another chapter in one of the most consistent discographies found in heavy metal. It’s another studded effort loaded with thrash and groove, just as Overkill have been cooking up for decades now.

7: Neil Young – Chrome Dreams

Here’s something to throw everyone for a loop – this album was released in August of 2023, but was recorded in 1977. It took 46 years for this album to finally be released, and I can count that very easily because I was born a few months after it was originally recorded. The album even got a sequel 16 years before its own release. It could be argued whether this should even count on a 2023 best of list, but this is my list so it counts.

Much of what’s on here would find its way re-worked onto other albums like American Stars N’ Bars and Rust Never Sleeps, the latter being my favorite Neil Young album. So it’s no surprise that I’d naturally take a liking to this long-lost record. Two of Young’s best songs, Like A Hurricane and Powderfinger, can be found here, and the rest are fantastic first versions of songs mostly well known. This album is honestly one of Young’s best and it’s just amazing that it took nearly half a century to get an official release.

6: Slowdive – Everything Is Alive

The British shoegaze legends came back this year with an album that had originally been planned during the world-shattering year of 2020. This is not “pure” shoegaze by any stretch – here, Slowdive incorporated some electronic and pop sounds that serve to expand their reach. Kisses was a fantastic lead single that I don’t think anyone would have pegged to come from a band known for the inaccessible strains of shoegaze, and this album is full of mature warmth and the band reaching out to add to their illustrious style.

5: Full Of Hell and Nothing – When No Birds Sang

For the unfamiliar, this is not one band – Full Of Hell is a US grindcore act, while Nothing is a US shoegaze outfit. The two came together to record a collaborative album and wound up delivering results far greater than the sum of their parts. This steps outside the subgenres of both acts and is a harrowing listen. It is at times a noisy, ugly affair and others quiet and beautiful. But at all times it is a very soul-crushing listen and directly confronts the fragile nature of the human psyche. It is one hell of a work.

4: Annabel Lee – Mother’s Hammer

This is the debut album from a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter who I, and probably many others, were not at all familiar with before this year. Generally termed “alt-rock,” this is a mix of songs that range from power and attitude to quiet and mournful. Alas I’m A Lady lashes out at the patriarchy, while All Of My Ghosts is a haunting look at the end of a long relationship. And the song Up is a total monster, it is infectious upon first listen and is “the song from an indie artist that should be a mega hit.” I wasn’t sure what I’d be hearing when I first played this but the fantastic songwriting and Annabel’s powerful voice offered up one of the best spins of the year.

3: Suffocation – Hymns From The Apocrypha

My favorite death metal band ever have returned from a six year recording layoff and their first album with vocalist Ricky Myers, who replaced long-tenured Frank Mullen at the band’s helm a few years ago. Not a beat was missed as Myers integrates himself just fine into the stew of brutality and technical wizardry that is Suffocation. This album lines up very well alongside the band’s best efforts and is everything a Suffocation fan could have wanted.

2: Vandenberg – Sin

Adrian Vandenberg had to fight off ex-bandmates for several years to retain control of the act bearing his own last name, but he was eventually successful and the outfit resumed in 2020 after 35 years away. Sin marks the second album since the group’s rebirth, this time Vandenberg is joined by singer Mats Levén, a man with a miles-long resume across rock and metal.

This album is white-hot hard rock that covers all the bases and doesn’t let up from start to finish. It’s honestly the best rock album I’ve heard in a long time, it’s another one I was completely blown away by. I didn’t expect it to suck but this album was so far beyond expectations it’s unreal. I know Adrian is hoping to work a bit with David Coverdale one more time before David’s retirement, but let’s hope that Vandenberg remains an act this time around, because they are on top of it.

Album of the Year 2023

Enforced – War Remains

The top of the heap this year goes to the Virginia thrash outfit on their third full-length album. I don’t usually start thinking about these album lists until more towards November, but this one lept out at me on first listen in April and let me know that I’d be talking about it on this list. As the year wore on, it became clear that this was the crown jewel of 2023.

There is nothing subtle here, Enforced are out for blood from start to finish. This is thrash metal by all means but also employing a good bit of crossover influence – the vocals have a hardcore quality to them and the drums employ a fair bit of D-beat. The songs are all on average 3-minute bursts of pummeling and pointing out the ills of the world, of which there are many in 2023. This album leaps off the record and goes right for the throat, and the songs translate well live also.

That’s wrap for the 2023 albums. There’ll be some more 2023 stuff to go over on Wednesday as we put this year into the books.

Nights Of The Dead – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On December 15, 2023February 11, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series17 Comments

This series is winding into the home stretch now as we’ve reached the end of the list of Iron Maiden live albums. Of course this is “for now,” as I’m sure at least one more is to come, and quite possibly several if not many more over the years. This will be a “living” series, for sure, and I’ll update it when new albums are issued. But for now and most likely for at least another year until the Future Past Tour finishes up, this will be the last proper post.

This album was recorded over three shows in Mexico City in September 2019. It is evident that Maiden went into Mexico with the express purpose of recording a live album. It’s generally understood that they record all of their shows anyway, but it does feel as though they had their sights set on these performances.

This was the first stretch of the Legacy Of The Beast tour. This is entirely a hits set, the band had not released a new album since 2015’s Book Of Souls and it would be about a year after this live cut before their next studio effort.

Of course, we can look at the date 2019 and know that these concerts were performed just before the COVID pandemic that totally defined 2020 and changed about everything. Maiden’s run of the Legacy… tour was cut short and the tour was finally resumed in 2022. This newer version of the tour did alter the setlist to incorporate songs from the 2021 studio album Senjutsu, but today’s live set is all about the 2019 version of the tour.

There is on-theme cover art featuring a Day of the Dead-inspired Eddie. Some might call it cultural appropriation, I prefer to think of it as Eddie simply visiting the world. It’s one of the more interesting Eddie pieces of the past several years, for sure.

Let’s do the usual – go over the tracklist then have at the particulars of the recording.

Churchill’s Speech/Aces High

Where Eagles Dare

2 Minutes To Midnight

The Clansman

The Trooper

Revelations

For The Greater Good Of God

The Wicker Man

Sign Of The Cross

Flight Of Icarus

Fear Of The Dark

The Number Of The Beast

Iron Maiden

The Evil That Men Do

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Run To The Hills

First let’s go over song selection. The vast majority of this is the same as what I’ve said about most every other live album – a lot of the obvious songs are here. Given that this set was a career retrospective, it’s no surprise at all. The Trooper is here, Number Of The Beast, the ever-present Fear Of The Dark, and Run To The Hills closes things out. From top to bottom this is a pretty stacked selection of the vanguard Iron Maiden tunes. Hallowed Be Thy Name is back in the set after the band sorted a legal challenge in 2017.

There are a few sprinklings of so-called “treats” here. Two of those are The Clansman and Sign Of The Cross, songs from the Blaze Bayley years that are widely regarded as the best tracks from that period. This was the first time since the Brave New World tour that anything from the Blaze albums got a live spin so it’s nice to hear them brought out again.

There is a treat from the golden years, too – Flight Of Icarus had not been played live since 1986. This was a very cool inclusion for the Maiden faithful, it’s kind of shocking that this classic sat on the sidelines for all these decades.

For all the talk of how well-regarded Maiden’s reunion has been, there were only two songs chosen for this tour from this era, Maiden’s longest run of consistency. The Wicker Man is one, the lead single from Brave New World has previously been in the set for the En Vivo! Live album and has been a part of several tours over the years. I’m a bit shocked the band didn’t include Blood Brothers, as that song has been a true anthem, but Wicker Man is totally an enjoyable track and there’s nothing to complain about.

The other reunion cut is the true gem, if not total crown jewel of the bunch – For The Greater Good Of God marks the first and, to date, only appearance of a song from A Matter Of Life And Death on an official Maiden live release. The album was played in whole on its tour cycle but no live record came from that, and then no song got back in a released set again until this tour.

And they didn’t just pick any old song from the album either – this one is an outstanding epic track, the twisted tale of religion and man’s fallacy is one of the best cuts from that album. For me this is the true reward of this live set.

Now let’s move to production and sound quality – overall it’s pretty good. I do think it’s a shade off of the prior two live releases, but things are broadcast pretty clearly without any real issues. I don’t know what night’s performances were chosen for inclusion on the album or what might have been messed with under the hood, I tend to think things were released “as is,” which is usually (but not always) the case with live Maiden.

And finally I should look at the band’s own performance, where honestly, we do have an issue. Now the band is in good form, nothing here sounds off or bad. I don’t know if this set really goes the extra mile compared to past live releases, but it’s all good in terms of the instruments.

There was a really big issue during these Mexico shows, though – Bruce Dickinson had the flu during the Mexico run. And yes, it’s pretty noticeable that Bruce is off on this album. Some songs sound better than others, I’d say Where Eagles Dare is the one that really sticks out as there being something wrong. On others he sounds maybe a bit labored and not hitting the highs of his youth, but still getting things mostly sorted.

I’ll say that I don’t think Bruce’s performance was total dogshit or anything like that, it doesn’t ruin enjoyment of the album for me. But it is there and is noticeable, and no matter my fanboyism of this band, I can’t sweep it under the rug. Now, I will say that the flu was the most likely cause here – there are other concerts from this tour and Bruce sounds way better on them. I have a bootleg of the Brazil show, and the Stockholm show is one many cite as the one that maybe should have been released as the live album. Bruce is spot on in both of those shows.

It does beg the question if maybe Maiden should have chosen a different show for the live release, but that’s purely hypothetical since this is the album we have. While it is flawed in an unfortunate way with the member that many consider the band’s main selling point, I do think they still squeaked out with a pretty enjoyable product here.

The question is – where would I rank this among the other live albums? Well, find out next week when I do just that – rank all 13 of the live Maiden releases.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

En Vivo!

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City (you are here)

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

Slayer – Show No Mercy

On December 11, 2023December 10, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week9 Comments

This album just turned 40 years old last week. Let’s relieve some arthritis, check out senior discounts, and get into it.

Slayer – Show No Mercy

Released December 3, 1983 via Metal Blade Records

My Favorite Tracks – Black Magic, The Final Command, Die By The Sword

This is more than just the story of Slayer’s debut album, it’s also the story of the formation of Slayer. The band did not fiddle about with a ton of members before getting a functioning line-up together – the founders of the band were Tom Araya on vocal and bass, Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman on guitars, and Dave Lombardo on drums. The group initially played cover songs, stuff like Maiden and Priest as well as the highly influential Venom. Slayer would incorporate the leather and spikes look as well as Satanic imagery into their performances.

Brian Slagel, the founder of Metal Blade Records, happened upon a Slayer gig and got the group to commit to the third volume of the Metal Massacre compilation series. He also got the band into a recording contract and Slayer set out to get their debut album recorded. Metal Blade did not have financial backing for the album so Araya and King used their own money and borrowed more to get the album done.

This album comprises 10 tracks at a slender 35 minutes of runtime. I am not going to go through every one of them today, instead I’ll just give the tracklist and then go over some highlights.

Evil Has No Boundaries

The Antichrist

Die By The Sword

Fight Till Death

Metal Storm/Face The Slayer

Black Magic

Tormentor

The Final Command

Crionics

Show No Mercy

There are other versions of this album out and about, some have a package that includes the band’s next EP Haunting The Chapel, this is a CD I used to have way back when and kind of wish I still did. There are others that have various bonus tracks.

The sound on this album is one that can be surmised from the bands Slayer were covering in their first days – this is a mix of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, along with a heavy dose of Venom and Mercyful Fate. I’d hesitate to call this thrash, though Slayer are clearly a defining band of that genre. This is a bit of something else, maybe speed metal on Satanic steroids. But it also isn’t really wrong to call it an early thrash banger.

This album is brash and rough, though it does flow and is very listenable. It does not descend into a near parody of heavy metal in the way many might say Venom did. While this wasn’t produced by a mastermind of the studio (Slayer self-produced along with Brian Slagel), it also isn’t crude and unwieldy the way, say, Sodom’s debut stuff was.

The dissonance that would come to define Slayer’s music was already present here, with super fast riffs running along with Tom Araya’s vocals, which for this debut could be found in the higher register. He stayed in his more usual pocket for a lot of stuff but would let out a falsetto scream on many occasions, something in keeping with King Diamond. It’s also something we wouldn’t get much more of as Slayer charted more of a thrash course and Tom decided to preserve his vocal chords for a 26 year long career of belting out some of the most subversive heavy metal to be found.

This album can be reviewed fairly simply, it is an all-or-nothing affair if a person will get into it or not – it’s an early heavy metal album, very heavy, that sets a course for being the truly monstrous stuff that a lot of other acts got accused of being through the 1980’s and the Satanic Panic. The riffs and drumming are lightning fast, if not necessarily constructed in the greatest songwriting fashion. Yet, it all holds together far better than a lot of other examples of “rough” early ’80’s metal that didn’t wind up being massively influential. These songs are “on the rails,” if only just barely, but there is a cohesive unit here.

I will say that I absolutely love this album, it is one of my favorite Slayer records. It is not their defining sound by any means, we’d get that a few years later on Reign In Blood and beyond. But this one has a very nice quality in its rawness, yet still being a functional unit. We can praise Venom all day and night for being the forefathers of the extreme metal that would come, but Slayer and Mercyful Fate were the two early bands that made this sound like actual music.

If there’s a song that hints at the Slayer to come, it’s Die By The Sword. This brutal tale of ancient warfare give the staccato, militant sort of rhythm that Slayer would employ as they went along. It remained a staple of the band’s set throughout their career, being the most-played live song from this album (just ahead of Black Magic). What Slayer was to be was truly found in this grotesque epic.

But that isn’t to discount the rest of the record – personally, I love it all. The Antichrist is a high-pitched attack that goes as fast as it can, while The Final Command builds in pitch through running riffs and Dave Lombardo’s psychotic drumming ability. Tormentor is a tale of night stalking that sees some fantastic early Araya screams, and the closer Show No Mercy is an early showcase of how the NWOBHM influenced the next generation that would be called extreme.

Show No Mercy was the first salvo from what would become a heavy metal icon. It was somewhat immature and not expertly executed, yet it works in its juvenile and unformed charm. The record would do wonders for an early Metal Blade Records, selling over 20,000 when the label had nothing that had hit over 5,000 at the time. And Slayer would be off and running, launching a tour that recruited family members as the road crew.

It would only be a few years before Slayer truly broke through, becoming one of the Big Four of thrash metal on the back of their genre-defining Reign In Blood album. But Show No Mercy should not be overlooked, nor should its follow-up Hell Awaits. This was the true bowels of heavy metal in the early ’80’s. Parents and the wives of politicians might have been upset over what a lot of other bands were doing, but Slayer was on a whole other plane of existence from that.

The Book Of Souls: Live Chapter – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On December 8, 2023February 11, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series19 Comments

Getting towards the end of the live album series here, though rest assured that the series will grow in the future, we won’t spend long without a new Maiden live album taking up more of my precious vinyl storage space.

The album title here makes things very easy to decode – this is the live album from the tour cycle for The Book Of Souls. The tour ran 2016 and ’17 and the shows here are mostly from 2016, with only two performances being on the 2017 run, for reasons that will be obvious in a minute. I did personally see this tour twice, once each year.

The songs are gathered from a variety of tour stops and represent a good chunk of the inhabited world. Sadly neither show I attended was picked, as nothing from the United States was chosen. The show must go on despite my wounded American exceptionalism. A few cuts come from major metal festivals, one from the almighty Wacken festival in Germany and two from the 2016 Download fest in England. The two Download songs mark the only “repeat” venue across the 15 tracks.

The band line-up is the same as it’s been all through the reunion era – Steve Harris in charge and on bass, Bruce Dickinson singing, the guitar threesome of Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers, and Nicko McBrain doing the drumming.

There was one huge question going into this tour – how was Bruce Dickinson going to sound? This wasn’t just a question of Bruce getting older – he had been treated for throat cancer in 2015, before the release of The Book Of Souls. It was something I was wondering about in early 2016 before the show then, fair to say that any concerns about the illness impacting his performance were quashed early on.

There was also a legal issue that would affect the 2017 setlist. Maiden were sued over songwriting to their magnum opus Hallowed Be Thy Name. The song had borrowed lyrics from the 1973 song Life’s Shadow by Beckett, a band that Maiden manager Ron Smallwood had been the agent for. Camp Maiden had a longstanding arrangement in place with a Beckett member who was billed as the song’s sole writer, but in the 2010’s a new lawsuit emerged from another Beckett band member who claimed he was cut out of a rightful share. This kept Hallowed… out of the setlist in 2017, the suit was settled out of court in early 2018.

This is all relevant here as the live album mirrors the 2017 setlist, despite having been mostly recorded from 2016 shows. There was one other change beyond removing Hallowed Be Thy Name – the BoS song Tears Of A Clown, a tribute to the tragic death of beloved actor Robin Williams, was also cut from 2017 sets. The BoS song The Great Unknown was added in, as was the early classic cut Wrathchild.

A quick note on video – while most live packages up to this point have had a physical video release, this one only got a digital video issue. Everything is freely available to watch on YouTube, so this did mark the likely end of the “old school” video releases from Maiden. Kind of sad in a way but that’s how changes roll.

Let’s do the usual – go ove the tracklist, then get into the music itself. This won’t take too long as it’s the typical reunion era album tour format.

If Eternity Should Fail

Speed Of Light

Wrathchild

Children Of The Damned

Death Or Glory

The Red And The Black

The Trooper

Powerslave

The Great Unknown

The Book Of Souls

Fear Of The Dark

Iron Maiden

The Number Of The Beast

Blood Brothers

Aces High

Going right into the reason for this album being – the songs from The Book Of Souls. There are several pretty obvious inclusions here – opener If Eternity Should Fail, the track Steve Harris knicked off of Bruce’s solo album, also opens the show and works great in that spot. The album’s single Speed Of Light is a quick and shorter number that also easily works live. And the title track Book Of Souls is another just amazing Janick Gers title track masterpiece.

We do also get Death Or Glory, another Maiden airplane dogfight song that is fine but not everyone’s cup of tea. The Great Unknown is another song that I’d also call fine but not necessarily remarkable. I would have preferred having Tears Of A Clown on the live album over either of those but Steve Harris didn’t ask me my opinion.

There is one other BoS song here – the monster epic The Red And The Black. This is the third-longest song Maiden have recorded, beaten out only by Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, and that only by 20 or so seconds, and then Empire Of The Clouds by several minutes. Opinion on The Red And The Black is divided, all I can do is offer mine – I absolutely love the song and I’m glad I got to hear it live twice and also have it on this release. It’s one of those songs that I play and take in every second and feel like only five minutes have passed when it’s over, I just don’t process that it’s as long as it is. So nothing but praise for me there.

There aren’t any real “hidden gem” songs here. We could call Children Of The Damned one – it was played a lot in its day but is kind of a treat in modern setlists, I guess. Powerslave is also one I don’t often expect to pop up, it does eat a few more minutes of stage time than others but I’ll never complain about hearing it.

There is an interesting bit in the encore – we can see by this point that the Brave New World opus Blood Brothers has been elevated to encore status. The song has been one of the most well-received of the reunion era and it’s a rightful Maiden anthem at this point, so it does fit well in this spot.

Beyond that, everything here is obvious picks. They are the same songs on most every other Maiden live release and yes, you do run a lot of the same ground when you release more live albums than other bands release total studio albums. Not a complaint from me, merely an observation.

The sound here is really good – this sounds live and still comes across clear and listenable. It’s a very solid recording that captures things very well and is “put together” out of its several different performances to fashion a very cohesive listening experience. No complaints at all in that department.

Overall this is a pretty remarkable live album. I probably do fawn over it a bit more because I caught them twice on this run, but it’s an impressive display of a band now in total legend status still able to captivate with a brilliant set, and showcase a lot of new material in the process. Big props for this one.

Next week I’ll wrap up the series proper with a look at the most recent live record, a career-spanning set recorded in 2019.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

En Vivo!