Published on Sep 17, 2004
By the time Iron Maiden hit the studio for 1990’s
No Prayer For The Dying release, the backbone of the
metal/hard rock scene of the 80’s was on the verge of breaking as I
saw it. As a junior in college, I remember hitting the one lull in
my record/cd purchasing habits as bands like Triumph, Rush, the
Scorpions, Dio, and Ozzy – bands I followed religiously- were in
the process of putting out their first truly weak albums after
producing a series of albums that came to define their careers.
Then this Maiden album hit with their first #1 single, “Bring
Your Daughter To The Slaughter”. If the cheesiness of the song
title didn’t strike fear in the hearts of Maiden fans, surely the
actual sound of vocalist Bruce Dickinson waxing poetic through the
song’s chorus would have done them in. Me included as I was
instantly subjected to laughing taunts by my then Morrissey loving
roommate. It was humiliation to the third degree.
“….Slaughter” was a track more befitting of inclusion in any
of the popular Freddy Krueger, “Nightmare on Elm Street”
soundtracks of the time than it was suited as an Iron Maiden
track.
Fast forward a couple of months and I found
No Prayer For The Dying in the $2 used bin down at the
student union. Picking it up on the cheap, I quickly came to find
that the departure of guitarist, Adrian Smith, was not steadied
with the addition of Janick Gers. Personally, the Maiden albums
and/or songs where Smith got the songwriting credits or played lead
guitar always have provided the most appeal to me. Couple Smith’s
departure with the fact that Dickinson comes off sounding
uninspired vocally;
No Prayer For The Dying is an album with nary a track that
has inspired me to revisit this album in the last 14 years.
The primary gutwrencher is the track “Holy Smoke” as it suffers
from the worst case of lyrical composition Steve Harris and Bruce
Dickinson have ever allowed the listening public to hear. Bees and
honey, some dude named Jimmy Reptile, and a holy smoke chorus with
Dickinson mimicking a Brian Johnson (AC/DC) growl just ain’t funny.
Trust me. It’s more like a holy joke.
Sure. This was the album that was supposed to bring Maiden back
to the roots rock sound of the band’s early days and away from the
synthesizer experiment of
Somewhere In Time and the progressive conceptual element
that
Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son gave us. And for this goal it
succeeds to a certain bare extent. What I hear are ten cuts that
are better suited as B-sides from the band’s previous years than
anything that furthers the bands signature stamp on the metal
genre.
While I have just pointed out my disaffection to this album, I
am reminding myself that in comparison with previous reviews where
I have panned artist’s efforts, this is still Iron Maiden we are
talking about. The stellar musicianship is still evident on
No Prayer For The Dying, by and large, but the writing and
overall vibe is very substandard to any album the band had recorded
until this time. With that silver lining identified, I feel
somewhat exonerated in scoring this album a tad higher than a
review full of nothing but criticism might normally be expected to
receive.