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Iron Maiden - No Prayer For The Dying



7.1 | 1475 votes |
Release date: 1 October 1990
Style: Heavy metal, New wave of British heavy metal

Owners:

1606 have it
71 want it
3 trade it


Disc I
01. Tail Gunner
02. Holy Smoke
03. No Prayer For The Dying
04. Public Enema Number One
05. Fates Warning
06. The Assassin
07. Run Silent Run Deep
08. Hooks In You
09. Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter
10. Mother Russia

Disc II [1995 reissue bonus]
01. All in Your Mind [Stray cover]
02. Kill Me Ce Soir [Golden Earring cover]
03. I'm A Mover [Free cover cover]
04. Communication Breakdown [Led Zeppelin cover]

Featured in "Getting Into: Iron Maiden"

Additional info
Produced & mixing by Martin Birch.
Engineering by Martin Birch, Mick McKenna, Les Kingham & Chris "Wood" Marshall.
Mastering by George Marino.
Cover art & photography by Derek Riggs, Hugh Gilmour & Ross Halfin.

Staff review by
Pierre Tombale
Rating:
8.8
1990 a new decade and a new sound for Iron Maiden, without keyboards again, much more direct in sound, but a different atmosphere from 'Somewhere?' and 'Seventh Son?'. This is 'No Prayer for the Dying'!

'Tailgunner' the first single from 'No Prayer' is definitely not the album's highlight, in fact I thought by the first listen: ok, but it can only get better! And it really does. The very sarcastic 'Holy Smoke' is a good start, direct, rocking and mocking. One of the album's highlights is the half-ballad and title track 'No Prayer For the Dying', nice melody, good vocals and great solo, even without Adrian Smith, who left after the 'Seventh Son' tour and who was replaced by Janick Gers, who had already worked with Bruce Dickinson on 'Tattooed Millionaire'. 'Public Enema Number One' is yet another solid performance, 'Fates Warning' is one of the more atmospheric songs, dark intro and guitars quite similar to those used on 'Somewhere' a good song. 'The Assassin' even darker, with the beat of a march in some passages. 'Run Silent Run Deep' is once again a song about a movie, or at least influenced by the same titled movie with Burt Lancaster and Clarke Gable from 1958. This makes sense as I've seen Bruce Dickinson in an interview on german television making the statement he likes those films about the war at sea and especially those with submarines. When you now take a look into the booklet you will find that the song is cooperatively written by Bruce Dickinson and Steve Harris.

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published 17.02.2004 | Comments (17)

Guest review by
Spyroid
Rating:
6.2
To call this album bad sure wouldn't be fair, but compared to other Iron Maiden albums 'No Prayer For The Dying' isn't really something to celebrate. I myself would call it the worst Maiden album with Dickinson on vocals. But I don't know any band who has released a great deal of albums like Maiden without failing a few times, so I'm not really blaming them. 'No Prayer For The Dying' is also the first Maiden album in more than 10 years that doesn't feature Adrian Smith, and even if Janick Gers is a great guitarist the chemistry wasn't really there yet, simply because he hadn't written any songs together with the band before.

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published 13.06.2008 | Comments (18)

Guest review by
omne metallum
Rating:
6.6
Iron Maiden came crashing into the 90s on the wave that was Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, finding themselves washed up on the shores of a new decade with Adrian Smith being taken to new lands by the sea. No Prayer For The Dying is the sound of the band wanting to move forward with a new sound that only served to take two steps back as they took one forward.

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published 20.06.2020 | Comments (7)

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Comments: 45   Visited by: 1311 users
04.06.2014 - 08:29
Rating: 8
mikeprado30

Written by deadone on 04.06.2014 at 07:48

I love the harmony bridge - it's a nice piece of music as well as being reminiscent of a ship being tossed by the Atlantic waves (song is about submarine warfare in the Atlantic).


Another great part of the song!


Written by deadone on 04.06.2014 at 07:48

Very good album IMO.


It was intended to be a return to the earliest Maiden's roots (no more synth in the music and rougher music), sadly it was not (and still is not) well received by the people.

It's different at the other albums, maybe could be the reason of so many bashing.
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BARDS WE ARE, BARDS WE WILL BE!
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26.07.2015 - 19:06
Rating: 10
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Written by deadone on 17.04.2014 at 08:20

A personal favourite of mine. I think it's a really decent little Maiden album.

And I like Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter!


and what is BIG maiden?
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
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I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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05.09.2015 - 01:41
Rating: 7
Toxik

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 23.07.2011 at 00:02

Really an average album at best with one of their, of no the, worst song ever. bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter. They still need to be shot for it after all these years.

Imagine how us Maiden fans felt when this atrocity was released after their firast seven (of which only Somewhere In Time was mediocre)

Wait what? How? To me it blows The Nunber Of The Beast and Powerslave
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23.10.2016 - 19:25
Rating: 6
tominator
At best deranged
As a huge Maiden fan, I have to say that this is my least favourite album by them. It's a very mediocre album and mediocre is not what we expect from Maiden.

A few good songs on this album (I'm thinking of No Prayer For The Dying, Run Silent Run Deep and Mother Russia) but other then that most songs are quite disappointing tbh.
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13.06.2018 - 03:41
Maco
Pvt Funderground
It's embarrasing to listen to this
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Crackhead Megadeth reigns supreme.
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06.09.2018 - 13:25
Rating: 5
Joppe
Steelemeister
Rather an unimportant album IMO, I mean I honestly don't see many listens for it as a whole. Individual songs can be picked from here and enjoyed of, but at least half of the songs can stay without replaying.

As many people seem to pick the title track, RSRD and Mother Russia as favorites it's pretty clear that the rest of the songs are so weak that they're not even considered as possible contenders by many. I'm not personally a huge advocate for RSRD as it's nothing more to me than a bit better than the average of this album, but the title track and Mother Russia are classic material
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My vision is augmented
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21.11.2019 - 14:30
Rating: 7
majormalfunction

After the overproduced Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son they went for a rawer and rockier approach which works pretty good. I pretty much like all the songs, except for Holy Smoke which is a bit too messed up and doesn´t suit Iron Maiden. Maybe the large problem is that most of the songs aren´t up to the standard one is used to with Iron Maiden. The album feels a bit rushed and incoherent. But it's still a good album even if it belongs among the weaker ones in their discography.
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Everything's twice as bright with money in your hands
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27.09.2021 - 00:05
Rating: 5
CobiWan1993
Secundum Filium
I’ve been going through every Iron Maiden album just to update my thoughts and I still think this is their worst album yet. The band is trying to get “back to basics” with this record, but I don’t remember them sounding this tired and shoddy when they were first starting out. The drums sound horrendously tinny and Bruce delivers what I think is his worst performance ever, laughably bad at times. Some songs are pretty decent like Tailgunner, the title track, and Mother Russia, which could be a great epic track with better production, a better performance from Bruce and was just better developed, perhaps a few minutes longer, but it seems like a wasted opportunity that had potential. Everything else is really not up to their usual standards to put it lightly and it all sounds undercooked and half-assed. There’s not a single song on here that I absolutely love and there’s a few that I really despise like Public Enema Number One, Holy Smoke and Hooks in You. I don’t know what happened between Seventh Son and No Prayer for the Dying that made them sound the way that they do here but it just sounds like a band that’s running on fumes.
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Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe (Lao Tzu).
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27.09.2021 - 00:20
JoHn Doe

Written by CobiWan1993 on 27.09.2021 at 00:05

I don’t know what happened between Seventh Son and No Prayer for the Dying that made them sound the way that they do here but it just sounds like a band that’s running on fumes.


Adrian Smith left, that's what happened.
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I thought the two primary purposes for the internet were cat memes and overreactions.
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27.09.2021 - 00:21
Rating: 5
CobiWan1993
Secundum Filium
Written by JoHn Doe on 27.09.2021 at 00:20

Written by CobiWan1993 on 27.09.2021 at 00:05

I don’t know what happened between Seventh Son and No Prayer for the Dying that made them sound the way that they do here but it just sounds like a band that’s running on fumes.


Adrian Smith left, that's what happened.


That’s true. He is definitely missed here.
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Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe (Lao Tzu).
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23.04.2022 - 10:26
Rating: 5
Vinther1991

Have to give this album a little more credit after listening through it again. It doesn't take itself too seriously, which I can respect. Mother Russia, Tailgunner and No Prayer for the Dying are all good tracks. I would even say Mother Russia is one of their better epics, even though it isn't that long.
Most of the other songs are slightly above average, while The Assassin is slightly below average and Holy Smoke and Hooks in You are overall bad songs.
But hey, even when the album sucks, the songs are at least so short they don't become torture like on later Maiden albums.
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23.04.2022 - 15:29
Rating: 7
Redel

Written by Vinther1991 on 23.04.2022 at 10:26

Mother Russia, Tailgunner and No Prayer for the Dying are all good tracks.

The title track and Run Silent Run Deep belong to my all-time favourite Maiden songs. Mother Russia is great. The rest ranges from forgetable to awful, making the album overall a subpar Maiden one, though not as bad as most people say, imo.
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23.04.2022 - 15:36
gavdann

I'd have to say this was the album where Maiden lost me. I loved everything they'd released to this point.

I've listened to bits & pieces on Spotify but I haven't bought any of their albums since.
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24.04.2022 - 21:24
Rating: 5
Vinther1991

Written by Redel on 23.04.2022 at 15:29

The title track and Run Silent Run Deep belong to my all-time favourite Maiden songs. Mother Russia is great. The rest ranges from forgetable to awful, making the album overall a subpar Maiden one, though not as bad as most people say, imo.

I am not completely won over by Run Silent Run Deep, but it is pretty solid indeed, with a lot working in its favour, I would probably rank it fourth below the three I mentioned earlier, and slightly above Public Enema Number One.
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13.07.2023 - 15:03
Rating: 7
grote_smurf

Finally I came to this conclusion.....

1.Tailgunner (by Bruce Dickinson and Steve Harris) 6

2.Holy Smoke (by Bruce Dickinson and Steve Harris) 7

3.No Prayer For The Dying (by Steve Harris) 9,5

4.Public Enema Number One (by Bruce Dickinson and Dave Murray) 7

5.Fates Warning (by Dave Murray, Steve Harris) 7

6.The Assassin (by Steve Harris) 5

7.Run Silent Run Deep (by Bruce Dickinson and Steve Harris) 7

8.Hooks In You (by Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith) 4

9.Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter (by Bruce Dickinson) 5,5

10.Mother Russia (by Steve Harris) 9

.......someone mentioned Fear Of The Dark inconsistent. I know which one is even less balanced 🤔
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One day the Dutch broadcast companies will present a GREAT heavy metal show on radio and tv. We call this wishful thinking.....
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