I'm sick, no surprise there, it seems I get sick almost every month these days. I stayed home, even though I felt worse yesterday, and I went to school.
Yesterday they crammed all the grade nines in the multipurpose room to announce our demise; we are to do midyear exams. SHITSHITSHIT. We don't have to do all five like we have to at the end of the year but we still have exams. It's pretty retarded because all grade nine's schedules are linear, therefor we have the same classes throughout the year (apart from electives). But there was this package deal that if all your grades are C+ or higher, you get monday, tuesday and friday off. Gff I have 66% in Math, I'm missing a few assignments, so if I hand them in next week that should bump my mark up to a C+ at least.
The other night I was cruising through the bowels of youtube and came across a piano version of Fear Of The Dark, I was seriously amazed, even though the person's timing is just a little off, they have other versions of Iron Maiden songs too, some of my favourites, too. Like Rainmaker and Afraid To Shoot Strangers. So at like 12:30 am yesterday, I taught myself Fear Of The Dark on the piano! It's a bit rough in parts and not quite up to speed, but I can play it. I feel kinda proud 'cause it's the first piece I've learned in six months, and all by myself, by ear! I really want to learn the other two, but they sound a lot harder (especially Rainmaker).
And now, for the second time on the ironrainbows blog thang; A FULL LENGTH WORDY REVIEW OF IRON MAIDEN'S SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON.
Woo. Also just a FYI, I don't review albums I don't like because... that would be boring, and stupid. So I doubt I'll review an album that gets anything lower than say a B+ what have you.
OKAY SO, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, probably my favourite Maiden album (although, I dunno, I loves Powerslave, Fear Of The Dark, Brave New World and Number Of The Beast so much), and I have it on CASSETTE FREAKIN' TAPE. So this review will probably take me twice as long to review as the Wolfmother one because I can't just skip through songs as easily.
Alright, a brief history. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son was Iron Maiden's... seventh album, dur. Released in 1988, it was the last Maiden album to feature guitarist Adrian Smith until he rejoined the group along with Bruce on the Brave New World album in 2000. I'm gonna copy and paste the next piece of history from wikipedia because I'm too lazy to rewrite it in my own words, fuuuh.
Yeah so there's a little bit of random information, on with the review!At least five of the album's songs ("Moonchild", "Infinite Dreams", "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son", "The Prophecy" and "The Clairvoyant") can be directly related to a main lyrical storyline inspired by the folklore concept.
Lyrically, the album centers around some main philosophical ideas: good vs. evil, mysticism, prophetic vision, reincarnation and afterlife. Almost all the album includes direct or indirect references to questions regarding to these concepts and poetically refers the answers.
Stylistically, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son develops the sounds first heard on Somewhere in Time (1986), and continues the band's lyrical exploration of topics related to mysticism, power, and the occult.
-Wikipedia (a.k.a. My best friend)
1. Moonchild: Starts off with Brucie singing "Seven deadly sins, seven ways to win, seven holy paths to hell... etc." then this sort of spacey synth kicks in. Now, I'm not a fan of 80s synth effects, but this works absolutely PERFECTLY here, and the guitar riff is fantastic and so goddamn catchy. Bruce's voice is godlike, as usual. Adrian and Dave's solos are crazy and seriously badass sounding. One of my favourite parts of the song is right at the end where the synth riff comes back and Bruce does this crazy manacle laugh (durrhurr). Fantastic song to start off an album with. Grade: A+
2. Infinite Dreams: Not super crazy about the start of the song, but it's one of those Maiden songs that takes a while to warm up to. I love the lyrics in this one, along with Bruce's voice (I'm probably going to say this for every song, so uh, yeah). It picks up speed about half way through with this great sort of riff that makes you feel like the room is spinning or something. It sounds like every thing is falling in a downwards spiral, if you know what I mean. It's weaker than Moonchild, obviously, but still a great song. Grade: A-
3. Can I Play With Madness: Well, everyone and their dog knows this one. You here the harmonized bellow, "Can I play with madness!?" at the start, as if to say "THIS IS MAIDEN MUTHAFUCKA,". It's one of the more stripped down, classic Maiden tracks, no spacey kind of stuff in this one. It's gallopy and moves along great. Not much more to say on this one. Grade: A+
4. The Evil That Men Do: This one is like a mixture of Madness and the other tracks, it's got some spacey synth kind of stuff and some GALLOPING! I adore Steve Harris's gallopy bass line, even if he uses it in like 70% of their songs, you just never get tired of it. The chorus is huge, awesome, epic sounding. That's why this song is so great sounding live. Bruce's vocal work is nothing short of amazing, what can I say, I'm totally in love with his voice. Guitar work from Smith and Murray is FABULOUS. Grade: A+
5. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son: *One moment please while Gemma flips the tape over to side two* Alright, the title track, and the longest song on the album, I believe. First of all, this is so. fucking. epic. But it is also so. fucking. hard. to. warm. up. to. When I first listened to it, I was fairly lukewarm with it, I mean, I wouldn't skip it every time it would play on my iPod, but I didn't love it, but after listening to it, I warmed up to it a lot. I think it's because of the length of the song and the fact that it doesn't immediately grab your attention, but don't get me wrong, it's a great great song, very well written, both lyrically and musically. Lot's and lots of layers to this one. Grade: A
6. The Prophecy: Starts slow, with a pretty synth/guitar combo. Then it suddenly starts with this crunchy guitar. And again, I love love love Bruce on this one, with the vocals overlapping as if there are more than one person singing one after the other at certain parts. After this, yet another guitar riff comes in, and I love this one, too bad it doesn't stick around for longer. It sounds piratey, like a big pirate ship sailing about on the crashing waves. Then at the end it fades out and rewards you with some pretty guitar, which sounds disturbingly not Maideny, it sounds, dare I say it, FOLKY? But it's great, really, love this one. Grade: A+ (Goddamn, all of these are getting 'A's!)
7. The Clairvoyant: Starts off from a great bass riff from STEEEEEEVE. The guitars join in and make a pretty sweet combo of a riff (harmonies woohoo!). The thing that stands out the most for me on this one is the lyrics, I love the line, "There's a time to live, but isn't it strange, that as soon as you're born you're dying," Good song, but I'm not sure if it's as strong as the others. Grade: A-
8. Only The Good Die Young: A great, solid, gallopy song to end off an album smashingly. I fucking love the chorus, it has the most beautiful vocal harmonies like ever (Yes, yet more Brucepraise). And there's a bass solo! HOW COOL IS THAT? Not much to say about this one apart from the fact that it's pretty close to perfect.
I also like how they wrap up the album with the "Seven deadly sins, seven ways to win... etc" thing at the end. Brilliant. Grade: A+
So there you are, my review of Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, one of my favouritest (lolwhat) albums of all time. It's like the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band of metal, in my opinion. Final Grade: A+ (yes, it is the closest thing to perfect)
Yeah, so that to me a while. In the time that took me to write this entire entry I also learned Afraid To Shoot Strangers on piano, whee.
OH. Song of the day is... *unoriginal* Afraid To Shoot Strangers, it's a great song, alright?
oop les irons.
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