Supermallet

Yeah, but Seventh Son of a Seventh Son actually has some killer riffs, and the keyboards never dominate over the guitars. And "Infinite Dreams" is easily one of Iron Maiden's best songs.

johnbook

I'm with you, i'm also a huge maiden fan and seventh son is a great album, it just had a different sound "Synth's, Keyboard's" that i loved just like Turbo did for priest, two great albums...

Josh-da-man

I can remember "Turbo" being reviled back when it came out.

However, I don't think it has aged that badly. It's not a great album by any stretch, but I don't think it's nearly as terrible as we made it out to be back in the day.

In a lot of ways it captures that tacky, neon-colored, synthetic mid-80s zeitgeist perfectly.

nothingfails

I am not a big fan of JP (I love hard rock, but full on metal is too much for me) but.... I think it's admirable that a band like that who has been around for over 30 years is taking such a risk at this stage in their career instead of just churning out the album people have come to expect from them. I wish more older artists would be so creative and daring at such a late stage, maybe The Stones' recent material would be better if they tried to do something different and unexpected instead of yet another paint by numbers Tattoo You sequel.

cdollaz

The new album is pure shit. Ugh!!!

Coming off of the last 2 Halford albums, Painkiller and Angel Of Retribution, which were both satisfying, I was pumped when I heard this would be a double album. I figured I would be getting 2 albums worth of good stuff. Instead I got about an EP worth of good material out of Nostradamus.

First, the songs aren't very memorable, but my biggest gripe is with the awful production. The synths/strings overpower everything else on the album. During the guitar solos, when I should be hearing the guitar above everything else, I hear that shit instead because it is much louder than the guitar. Anytime there is the synth, which is most of the time, it is usually the most prominent element. JP is about guitars and Halford's voice and nothing should be overshadowing either of those. I checked the liner notes and Tipton/Downing produced it, as I expected upon hearing it for the first time. This is a prime example where there should have been some outside voice who could bring them back to reality. Even though I don't care for the songwriting that much, I think it still could have been at least OK if it had been produced correctly.

nothingfails

not trying to threadcrap or anything, but I am curious

After reading all the reviews here, and thinking of other albums in the past like KISS' The Elder and the sort. Why are hard rock/heavy metal fans so resistant to something different from their favorite artists? Whereas at the same time, other genres like straight-ahead rock and alternative and the sort thrive on the artists doing something different? Judas Priest adding synths and strings to their music for a new sound is a bad thing, but Coldplay are being lauded for going in a new direction for their brand new album? I don't understand why it's treated as such a bad thing for a metal band to try something different, when that exact sort of thing has made people like David Bowie and Prince Hall Of Fame members?

cdollaz

It has nothing to do with it being different. It is just not well done.

nothingfails

well, I think back to the way metalheads reacted to Kiss and Metallica trying something out of their box, and it seems similar to the reactions people have with this album

cdollaz

I don't know about Kiss, but Metallica just started making shitty music. Load and Reload are mostly just glorified bar rock and St. Anger sounded horrible and the songs were not cohesive.

johnbook

Doesn't seem like the album is getting much love, well i purchased it today and am mostly through the first cd and i love it so far, sure it's different but i still enjoy hearing priest, Rob's voice is perfect for an album like this, and KK and Glenn sound great, lovin the synth guitars, can't wait to finish listening to it.

B5Erik

Like I said, there aren't many memorable riffs or strong vocal hooks on Nostradamus. There is a TON of mellow, moody filler - TONS of it - but very few good songs.

I like that they tried to go out of the box to do something different, but, as noted above, the execution was poor. VERY poor.

Josh-da-man

Listening to "Nostradamus" right now.

I don't think it's nearly as awful as it's reputed to be, though I'll have to listen to it a few more times over the next month or so to formulate a complete opinion.

It's essentially a prog-metal album, which is what might be turning some people off. I could definitely see a band like Fates Warning recording this in the early 90s.

My biggest gripe is that I don't think it needed to be a double album. Tightening this puppy up would probably have improved it quite a lot.

B5Erik

Just listened to disc 2 of Nostrodamus.

It's better than disc 1. Still flawed, still not enough solid songs, but better than disc 1.

I'll have to listen to the whole thing a couple more times. It's definitely their, "Elder," though.

The Cow

I actually like it a lot.

Didn't they say they were making a full length video of it this fall? A couple of the guys were on MTV2 during headbangers last weekend, and I thought I heard Rob say that.