Written by Sean 79 on 06.10.2015 at 20:53




Come on now. Of course there is there is vote abuse. Why it happens I don't know. If people are doing it to get certain albums to the top of some list, well that's just sad. Does it matter if an album you like gets to the top of some random list. What does the person get out of it.
The only way around it would be to scrap the total average votes and therefore the lists. Would it be such a bad thing. I mean do they even matter.

of course there is, but how do you distinguish the "fake" from the "real" 10s or 1s? you either have to allow all the votes, or switch to a binary like/dislike system.

ehh, i reckon they do it because they don't like the thought of an album they hate having a higher rating than an album they love. no gain, just nothing better to do.

Written by rps on 24.09.2015 at 03:57

..........at least over 300 people at Amazon USA got it right.....4.5 of 5 stars!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZYW5M52?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=od_aui_detailpages00#customerReviews

........make that over 450 votes!

Written by rps on 17.10.2015 at 04:25


........make that over 450 votes!

You must have very little faith in your own opinions if you have to constantly run to Amazon's en masse votes to make yourself feel better. I don't need a single other person to agree with me to know that I find this album dull as crap.

Written by [user id=4365] on 17.10.2015 at 04:31

Written by rps on 17.10.2015 at 04:25


........make that over 450 votes!

You must have very little faith in your own opinions if you have to constantly run to Amazon's en masse votes to make yourself feel better. I don't need a single other person to agree with me to know that I find this album dull as crap.

Dude what's up your ass? I already posted my opinion. Sorry for your ignorance of metal.

Written by rps on 17.10.2015 at 04:41

Dude what's up your ass? I already posted my opinion. Sorry for your ignorance of metal.

Sorry for your ignorance of people.

Maybe he should read from the book of RYM, where nearly 1200 people think the average is even lower than metal storm...

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/iron_maiden/the_book_of_souls/

(Still needs to be a point lower imo)

Good... still impressing, still strong, still moving... great melodies, up with the Irons \m/

Written by [user id=4365] on 17.10.2015 at 05:07

Maybe he should read from the book of RYM, where nearly 1200 people think the average is even lower than metal storm...

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/iron_maiden/the_book_of_souls/

(Still needs to be a point lower imo)

That's a decent rating for RYM. Their highest rated album since Brave New World. Sorry to offend you.

Written by Nicko's Nose on 27.10.2015 at 21:17

That's a decent rating for RYM. Their highest rated album since Brave New World. Sorry to offend you.

I agree, by RYM standards it's a high score. No offence being taken here: I was just using it to illustrate a point to what's his name.

I really don't know why this album does not have a higher rating, this is a brilliant effort and indeed there are so many excelent songs. The Red And The Black and Empire Of The Cluods are easily in a top ten of Iron Maiden Songs

Written by Andresopeth on 27.05.2016 at 15:15

I really don't know why this album does not have a higher rating, this is a brilliant effort and indeed there are so many excelent songs. The Red And The Black and Empire Of The Cluods are easily in a top ten of Iron Maiden Songs

I can't speak for others, but I found all but 2 of the songs to be rather dull and forgettable. So I don't know why it doesn't have a much lower rating.

How many has listened it after it was out?

anyway new video
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/iron-maiden-official-death-or-glory-performance-video/

Written by Bad English on 04.06.2016 at 00:21

How many has listened it after it was out?

Myself I enjoy every and each one of its songs (maybe Shadows of the Valley not so much but still is enjoyable, not great but enjoyable).

Just as Quentin Tarantino, Iron Maiden needs to get a producer who can say enough is enough. They seem to just pack every idea they got into the album and when none of the song does justify it's length it's ridiculous. You could easily cut 4 minutes from Red and The Black and Empire of the Clouds and 2 minutes from Book of Souls and If Eternity Should Fail, all these songs could actually be pretty damn nice that way. Now they just drags on to the point you almost go crazy. Those 4 tracks are probably the best stuff on the album and the rest ranges from plain filler to average, that says quite a lot. Other stuff to complain about is the poor production and Bruce strained voice. I've surely listened to this album 10 times but this isn't good.

This is a really good effort from the band. Somehow it is like they mixed parts from all their history. There is no need though IMO for THAT long durations... Tears of a Clown, The man of Sorrows and The red and the black are my personal favs..

A 9,5/10 album for me. Honestly this is my 3rd favourite Maiden album. I do understand however that this is not an album for everyone (though I find it weird that there are people who give this album a 1,2 or 3 out of 10). Not liking it is one thing but it's not like the songs are played badly or that the lyrics are terrible,...

I love the progressive route that Maiden went on with their last albums. The Final Frontier however was really inconsistent. This one is imo one of the most consistent they have ever made.

If you are however looking for the short and adrenaline fueled songs like "Aces High", "The Trooper", "Run To The Hills", "The Wickerman", etc. you will most likely be disappointed.

I basically like every song on this one the only 2 songs that are a bit weaker imo are "When The River Runs Deep" and "Speed Of Light".

Mediocre album. Iron Maiden has been on a streak of mediocre albums since their reunion with Dickinson, although Brave New World still had the occasional good track to save its ass. But this? Songwriting for the most is bad, not a single shred of creativity can be heard in this album. It is like the band is going through the motions just to squeeze out a new album like a corporate boy-band to earn some more cash. The two long ass songs are the most painful to hear. The 13 minutes song with the 'who-ho-ho' had me cringe. And the 18 minute one with the crappy piano part that pretty much anybody can write however musical-illiterate he/she is or with Bruce's unrecognizable vocals is the epitome of the word embarrassing.

Furthermore, the production sucks. It is mind-boggling how in this day and age when even a band without the support of big or medium label can crank up a good production quality while big bands such as Iron Maiden and Metallica fail at doing so. Bruce may not look his age but he sure does sound like a 60 year old pensioner. You have to be really tone-deaf or outright insane to consider this album better than everything they've done before. Particularly the 80s stuff. This is not progressive at all. This is a wannabe progressive rock album with a modern touch. After all, most of the so called progressive albums released today are made up of sing-along bullshit that has nothing to do with the word progressive, meaning innovative.

There is nothing wrong with a progressive album, if you know have to do a progressive album

What I hear when I listen to The Book of Souls is a clear lack of disciplin from Iron Maiden. Many of the songs are overlong with long segments of uninteresting music mixed with other segments with very solid music. There are highs (Title track, If Eternity Should Fail), but most of the tracks could benifit from being cut down (Empire of the Sun, The Red and the Black etc.) or scratched completely (Death and Glory, Speed of Light). The longer tracks are packed with filler segments, the shortest songs lack inspiration completely. Since A Matter of Life and Death their songs have just gotten longer and longer, but here the songs start to suffer from it.
I'm in the slim minority who thought The Final Frontier was a terrific, although flawed album. The Book of Souls takes the flaws of it's predecessor and make them 5-fold worse.
Unfortunately it seems their fans agree that the longer the songs are, the better. People were almost having an orgasm when they heard it would be a double album. Due to this, Iron Maiden has little reason to change direction, and we could probably expect 20 min+ tracks on their next album.

The Red And The Black is one of that Iron Maiden classic songs, one of my favorites of all their career.

Overwhelming mammoth of a metal album. Requires constant listening to really get into it, but after few weeks I think I got the point. It's great album, very demanding and at first boring, but after some time it will grow on you if you're patient enough. Bad songs? None. Another Maiden classic.

But what's up with that ugly cover? Mark "Painkiller" Wilkinson can do much better than that.

I'm a maiden fan since the early years and i'm really disappointed with the 2 last maiden albums. I just don(t like them. One thing is that this album lacks the "power" that you usually find in maiden albums. A bit like in "no prayer for the dying".... I'm not comparing those two albums cause the compositions in BOS are much better. BOS is even better in my opinion than TFF, but in no way it reaches the 3 albums starting the millennium. Not powerful enough for maiden in my opinion. Somebody said at first he found the album boring, i agree with that but even after many tries because its maiden and i would be pleased to like it, but the magic never comes. Because its maiden i'd put a 7 and i don't think it worths more...

In the wake of the announcement of the new release I went back to this one and had to downrate from 8 to 7.
This album is just waaay too long, packed with uninteresting songs and passages.
This is just too much of a pity since there are also several excellent approaches to find here. For me they would be If Eternity Should Fail to some part, The Great Unknown, The Red And The Black to some part and the title track.
The rest of the 90 minutes is really just totally dispensable, in each and every detail.

In the light of this revisit I am looking way more sceptical at the new 80 minutes release to come than many other people here.

Written by TheMAGAmvm on 21.01.2017 at 01:01

Mediocre album. Iron Maiden has been on a streak of mediocre albums since their reunion with Dickinson, although Brave New World still had the occasional good track to save its ass. But this? Songwriting for the most is bad, not a single shred of creativity can be heard in this album. It is like the band is going through the motions just to squeeze out a new album like a corporate boy-band to earn some more cash. The two long ass songs are the most painful to hear. The 13 minutes song with the 'who-ho-ho' had me cringe. And the 18 minute one with the crappy piano part that pretty much anybody can write however musical-illiterate he/she is or with Bruce's unrecognizable vocals is the epitome of the word embarrassing.

Furthermore, the production sucks. It is mind-boggling how in this day and age when even a band without the support of big or medium label can crank up a good production quality while big bands such as Iron Maiden and Metallica fail at doing so. Bruce may not look his age but he sure does sound like a 60 year old pensioner. You have to be really tone-deaf or outright insane to consider this album better than everything they've done before. Particularly the 80s stuff. This is not progressive at all. This is a wannabe progressive rock album with a modern touch. After all, most of the so called progressive albums released today are made up of sing-along bullshit that has nothing to do with the word progressive, meaning innovative.

So many lacking of respect...

I've been going back through Iron Maiden's whole discography and this album is much better than The Final Frontier, so far superior in fact that it may be my favorite 21st century album from them (basically anything after Brave New World). The band sounds more engaged on this album after sounding like they were going through the motions on the previous album and though Bruce is sounding older, which is only natural, he seems reenergized here after sounding so strained before, and this was apparently recorded while he had cancer(!!!) also. I couldn't even tell had I not heard about it from the band after the fact, maybe it scared him into giving it all he had but either way this is a great performance.

The songwriting is also better than before and I can name more songs that I constantly revisit. If Eternity Should Fail might be my favorite opening song from them at least since Sign of the Cross, perhaps even Moonchild, The Red and the Black and the title track are phenomenal epics that recall Maiden's classic 80s era, and Empire of the Clouds is one of my absolute favorite Iron Maiden songs of all time. It's so unlike anything they've ever done before and yet somehow they make it seem so natural. I'm amazed they were able to pen a song like this this late into their career but they pulled it off brilliantly, making 18 minutes feel half as long. Even the songs I haven't mentioned are really good, solid tunes that complement these larger, mammoth songs and while there are some moments of drag every now and then, it's nothing too distracting unlike The Final Frontier which almost made me check out until The Talisman came on.

There really aren't any weak songs on here in my opinion and I'm amazed that even though this album is longer (their longest to date in fact), I was never bored with it, I was always engaged in some way, whether it be a cool riff, guitar solo, Bruce's singing, or what have you. A great record all around.

Written by CobiWan1993 on 13.10.2021 at 06:38

I've been going back through Iron Maiden's whole discography and this album is much better than The Final Frontier, so far superior in fact that it may be my favorite 21st century album from them (basically anything after Brave New World).

I did the same thing to "celebrate" the release of Senjutsu (aka bloated shitpile). Song-by-song ratings, went through and maintained the ratings on RYM to really nail things down. It was great to revisist all their albums and refresh my memories. Some albums are much better than I remember (ironically enough, this one and Final Frontier).

Agree thoroughly on Eternity Should Fail. What a fantastic opener, best since Wicker Man for me.
Red and the Black and Empire of the Clouds really got repetitious in some areas which lowered my ranking of what would otherwise be really high ranked songs. They both could've shaved several minutes off of them, completely maintained their status as "epic", and not caused a loss of interest.

having said that, I'd place it behind their first 3 of the century, but still a solid 8.6 from me, just ahead of Final Frontier, and ages ahead of the bloated shitpile

Instead of improving with each listen, this one just gets worse. This is truly worse than anything they had released before this point. The long tracks are snoozefests and the short are uninspired.
If Eternity Should Fail is DECENT, but not more. It has a great jamming session, solid chorus, but tedious verses. The title track is average, it at least feels like an actual song, where thought has been put into how the parts are put together, they fit together naturally, however since the parts are average, the whole song is average. A part that is certainly NOT average is the second half of the jamming session in The Red and The Black, that part is KILLER and probably the best 2.5 min of music on the album. There we truly see strong riffs and melodies transitioning seemlessly into each other and instruments that support each other, playing to each others strenghts. Qualities that are completely missing from the rest of the album, except the opening track. Unfortunately The Red and the Black also has some awful parts, like when the guitar copies the vocal lines and plays it underneath Bruce, it sounds awful, and it is a gimmick the album uses over and over again. Outside these three aforementioned tracks there really isn't anything strong about the album, average riffs and average melodies that are repeated until my ears are bleeding, transitions between the parts are usually abrupt and not in a good way. The album only seems to have a handful of ideas, that are drawn out to complete boredom. I especially despise the second disc, on which all of the songs are among Iron Maiden's worst tracks. Death and Glory, Tears of a Clown and Man of Sorrow are just embarrasing in every way. Shadows Of The Valley is marginally better, though it steels from Wasted Years and doesn't bring any good new ideas to the table.
Empire Of The Clouds is probably the song on the second disk that has the most going for it, but then it is still average piano melodies and the most generic scale-like guitar riffs that are repeated to death. At least there is 30-60 sec after the guitar leads that is a bit more upbeat and interesting, but we are talking 30-60 sec of an 18 min track.
At least the album has one thing going for it, the production is better than on the 2 preceeding albums and the one that followed. It is still not good, but well it could be worse...

I think if they had only kept the first CD + Empire Of The Clouds, this could've been one of their best. The rest on the second disc are just third grade weird, even the performances are off. They should have worked those songs more, some had potential to be much better. I really like the first disc however, even if the intro to "When The River Runs Deep" is kind of just fumbling about. Some people say the ideas were drawn out; I kinda like how they take time and not just rush through them, they come across grander and to me they don't feel boring at all

It is a decent album. I don't understand those who praise the album nor those who think it is dogshit. Which is of course natural since people's preferences and tastes vary a lot, so not criticizing anyone's opinions. To me it is a good album that is enjoyable to listen to but nothing special. Tracks are for the most part standard Iron Maiden melodies, generally not very creative for them, but decent enough. Performance of the band members are pretty good, especially Nicko's. Bruce's vocals are struggling which is normal in his age.

If Eternity Should Fail, title track, and Empire Of the Clouds are very good songs. The Red and the Black, When the River Runs Deep, Shadows of the Valley are good enough. Others have their moments, except Death or Glory and Speed of Light which I find quite boring. The main problems that bring the album down for me are, it sounds a bit thin and empty probably due to production or something, it generally lacks passion, and it is too long. Still their best album since Brave New World imo, including Senjutsu.