Mattowarrior's Metal Madness

In 1990, Iron Maiden were at a crossroads. Longtime contributing songwriter and guitarist, Adrian Smith had quit the band over "musical differences". The band was doing studio sessions on what was to be "No Prayer for the Dying" and Adrian had had enough. He also had a solo project "A.S.A.P. which had released its debut album (may do a review on this as well, not sure). But either way, things weren't the same for Maiden. Steve Harris in particular had decided to go back to his roots, and Iron Maiden's as well, in doing a more "raw" back to basics album. Smith wasn't satisfied with this (especially after the phenomenal Seventh Son of a Seventh Son), so this factors in the story as well. Smith was then replaced by former White Spirit and Bruce Dickinson (solo) guitarist Janick Gers, and his placement caused controversy (which strangely, continues to this day).  But we can also look at the history of metal to find more answers to what was...

 So, alas, its time again. Time for another Blind Guardian album. Its been awhile (since 2006 in fact) and the greatest Heavy Metal band since Iron Maiden has a new album on the horizon. To precede the late summer release of the upcoming album At the Edge of Time, they have released a three song single, A Voice in the Dark.  As a longtime fan, I will admit to being dissapointed in their last two full length albums. 2002's A Night at the Opera, while excellent in many areas, had something that wasn't common on Blind Guardian albums up to that point- filler. Also, it seemed that a lot of the riff-based style of writing that had propelled their career to heights in the Nineties was gone; replaced instead by a lead/melody oriented style of writing. Its not that this was unwelcomed as Night at the Opera had some excellent tracks like the magnum opus, And Then There Was Silence, but something was apparently amiss in some of the lesser tracks.  This was then compounded by th...

In some ways, Iron Maiden represents the ideals of any aspiring musician. They do what they like, with no regard for trends but with total regard for their longtime fans. But in this blog I want to poke a little bit of a hole in the "myth" that is perpetuated with the Iron Maiden fanbase. Don't get me wrong, Iron Maiden has been and is still one of the inspirations for me being into metal in the first place. But often on message boards, in conversations, and so on, Iron Maiden is regarded as the Vanguard of Heavy Metal as far as integrity goes. Fans and peers alike testify to the fact that the band "never sold out", they "never compromised" and with this comes the idea that the band almost is an altruistic band still in touch with their "working class roots" and with no regard for profit...but... While not wanting to bash who is probably my favorite band, have you ever noticed the glut of Iron Maiden merchandise in recent years? Also noti...