While I really admired Blaze Bayley’s performance on “The Sign of the Cross,” would it be wrong to think that he should rewrite and re-record that and perhaps other tracks from The X-Factor as well as Virtual XI with his own unique style? It’s not that I don’t like Iron Maiden, I enjoy their music, but Blaze does have a strong, unique sound that he has created over the course of his time after his time in Iron Maiden. What are your thoughts?

Str8 up one of the most emotional albums I have heard. Amazing stuff from Blaze. Wow

ARTICLE (spanish): https://anfetaminarock.blogspot.com/2024/02/blaze-bayley-circle-of-stone-2024.html

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Lets keep it retro

The pre-Iron Maiden Wolfsband albums don't appear to be available to buy or stream anywhere. Does anybody have (and are you willing to share) high quality audio files? CD rips or whatever?

Blaze's new live album sounds great, have you heard it? It has songs from his last album and some Maiden-era gems.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5t1t30FzJyPswtdMWgGmEs?si=C9tDnzTmTqq8bT32UXC_vg

Title’s self-explanatory!

Seeing the band at the weekend. Absolutely loved catching them in 2021 so have really been looking forward to this!

I’m interested in seeing whether the War tracks that underpinned the 2021 tour continue to feature or are fully swapped out.

I think from the tour poster and name we can expect, with 100% certainty, The Unstoppable Steven Hawking and his Alan Turing song to feature (and if heroes are a theme, maybe 303 too). Futureal and MOTEdge are probably the Maiden songs that are dead certs.

It’d also make sense for Blood and Belief tracks to feature given the recent reissue (and I don’t believe any of these songs got played when I last saw him). But which tracks specifically is probably a fairly open question. Hollow Head would be fun.

As for my own hopes: I hope the band enjoyed revisiting some Maiden songs they don’t usually play at that show in Greece a few months back. I absolutely love TXF’s non-single album tracks - so am hoping for Judgement of Heaven (but not really expecting it!).

I’d also love to hear more from Silicon Messiah and Tenth Dimension, on account of those albums being wall-to-wall bangers.

A song I’d love to hear but am very much not expecting is Sign of the Cross - just doesn’t fit the vibe I’m expecting (except maybe as an encore opener).

Like a lot of us, I became a Blaze Bayley fan with Iron Maiden's The X Factor. A lot of Maiden fans had a hard time with him, but I didn't. I always felt like we got great Iron Maiden albums with Blaze singing, and we got great Iron Maiden albums with Bruce and Adrian at the same time.

And as good as The X Factor is, it's not perfect. Even 16-year-old me felt like it was a little too long and a couple of the songs copied themselves. So I set out to sort of re-imagine this album. I don't think for a second I'm "fixing" it. It's good as-is. But I wanted to create something a little more accessible, a little less dark. A thing I'm big on with re-orders like this is deleting songs. They don't even have to be bad, but if they don't serve to make the album better, I'll lose it. So here's what I did.

Sign of the Cross – one of absolute best Iron Maiden songs ever in my opinion. Atmospheric and glorious! And for me, changing this up would be a bridge too far. It stays and it remains the opening track.

Lord of the Flies - Also a banger. Dark and brooding, and about a chaotic and feral group of kids. It stays too, but I never liked its location in the album.

Man on the Edge – Another iconic song, and a friggin badass at that! Stays, obviously.

Fortunes of War – This is where things begin getting a little fuzzy. It's not a bad song or anything. But it is a mid-tempo non-banger about PTSD. And with The Aftermath, there are two of them on the record. You know what? I'm trying to make something new here. Lose this song.

Look for the Truth – I think this is an overlooked and under-appreciated song that, in retrospect, was a harbinger of lyrical content to come with Blaze. It reminds me of a portrait that's got the subject simultaneously in deep shadows and bright light. If you haven't lately, give this song a re-listen. It's really good. It stays.

The Aftermath – I lost it. Even when I was young, I never loved this song. i remember Steve Harris saying he felt it came to life live. I went and listened to the version on Best of the B-Sides but I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with Steve. I think it's a slog. Lose it.

Judgement of Heaven – Another under-appreciated song in the style of Look for the Truth. I'll keep this one as well.

Blood on the World's Hands – Man, this one's hard. "One day, another killing / Somewhere, there's someone starving / Another, a savage raping / Meanwhile, there's someone laughing at us". The music and performances are both awesome, but man. Again, I looked to the live Best of the B-Sides version. I liked it more! I think it was sped up a little, and the mix feels a little crisper somehow. Interesting, but I lost it because at 10 songs, this playlist still felt too long.

The Edge of Darkness – You know what I'm noticing with this album is there are a lot of songs that have these quiet introductions then get louder and heavier. But it's also formulaic and sort of exhausting. This is a good song, but it doesn't serve my goals of trying to create something brighter and more accessible. I lost it.

2 a.m. – Another lyrical slog. Another mid-tempo challenge. Lost it.

The Unbeliever – Musically, this one's fantastic. Great songwriting, great vocal performance. Lyrics are a little confused but not the downer they could have been. Man, what this song could have been with a little more self-awareness and time spent on the lyrics! Still, I like it and I like its message. Hang on to it.

Other Stuff

There were other songs recorded during this era. They showed up on singles and what have you. Since I'm trying to create something new, I decided to look at those songs and see if they fit.

Virus – Likely the most well-known song. Came out on Best of the Beast. I never loved this song. The too-quiet-then-too-loud abruptness was never something I enjoyed listening to. I would love to hear a reimagining of this song, performed differently. That guitar tone at the end would sound awesome if included during the quiet parts, maybe. I feel like the band In Flames could do a remarkably good and even cover of this one. Sigh. Even Blaze solo sort of just played this one straight. I wish he'd taken the opportunity to rework it. I opted not to include this.

I Live My Way – Super positive, upbeat song! And a banger! No wonder they left it off the album. I'll put it back on!

Judgement Day – An absolute banger! Lyrically just fine, but man if they'd gone another direction and not done the sort of negatively positive scared straight route, this could have been a classic. Still, great performances and serviceable lyrics, and no super slow and quiet intro! This one goes on.

Justice of the Peace – Another banger without an intro! Again, no wonder they left it off the album. And like Judgement Day, if they'd done something else with the lyrics, this could have been a classic! Still, it sounds upbeat and fun even if the lyrics aren't, so it goes back on too.

Final Tracklist

I emphasize flow, both with the sound of the songs and lyrical content. I didn't intend to have the middle section be "new" songs when I started out, but they flowed really well and kind of broke the rest of the album up in a way I found very satisfying.

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1. Sign of the Cross
2. Man on the Edge
3. Lord of the Flies
4. I Live My Way
5. Justice of the Peace
6. Judgement Day
7. Look for the Truth
8. Judgement of Heaven
9. The Unbeliever

I messed with the ordering of these songs for a long time and it was tough. Well, all except for switching Man on the Edge and Lord of the Flies. I wish Iron Maiden had done that originally. What I ended up with feels good to me. Again, I don't want to say it's better, but it's a very different experience, and it's one I suspect I'll listen to a lot more frequently all these years later.

So that's it. Nine songs, 50 minutes, and a totally different vibe.

Blaze Bayley has had a solid solo career, but I think we can all more or less agree that The King of Metal was his biggest misstep. Especially coming off the heels of The Man Who Would Not Die and Promise and Terror, The King of Metal was a little... disappointing.

Look, Blaze is my № 1 favorite working musician. I maybe like The Ramones more. Maybe Motörhead. But they're not working any more. Blaze is working and he is, with no exceptions, my favorite musician currently making music. So I'm not here to bust any balls. I'm here to find out if I can take The King of Metal from something I just don't listen to into being something I enjoy and look forward to listening to.

What's interesting is that as I went and listened to this album critically, I'm struck that the songwriting and performances are both really good! Blaze wrote most of this record with Nylon Maiden acoustic virtuoso Thomas Zwijsen (if you haven't heard the other Thomas Zwijsen-Blaze Bayley collaborations, I envy that you you get to listen to that for the first time today!). The biggest problem I have is cringy lyrics. And the mix that we all kind of blame isn't as bad as I remember it being. It could certainly use a remix, but the lyrics are a lot worse than the mix to my ear.

Ok, here we go.

The King of Metal. This is a banger! Keeping it as the opening track.

Dimebag. Let me reiterate that this album is full of good songwriting and great performances; but also some unfortunately cringy lyrics. To my ears, this is cringe as fuck. What could have been a cool tribute ended up sort of giving us a blow-by-blow of the Damageplan show where Dimebag was murdered, and it's a miss. Lose it.

Black Country. This song is the only one on the record not written with Thomas Zwijsen. I'm sorry to say I think it's also the only song on the album I ditched because of poor songwriting. It's uneven, meandering, and too long. I also don't feel the lyrical content matches the music appropriately. It's weird. And the lyrics are bewildering. Lost this one too.

Rainbow Fades to Black. Another good banger. I feel like I read that it was a tribute to Ronnie James Dio, and it sounds like it from the opening riff to lyrical nods his direction. Keep it.

Fate. Another banger, and in my opinion the most Blaze Bayley song on the record. Great lyrics, great performance, a great song that I'd love to hear live. Keep it.

One More Step. A departure of the heavy metal sound, but Blaze absolutely kills it. Man, you can see right into his heart on this one. You can feel his loss and his pain and his stubborn inability to stay down. This one stays.

Fighter. Another banger! Lyrically, it could have been on The War Within Me easily. Musically it could have been on The Man Who Wouldn't Die or Promise and Terror. Hell yeah. This stays.

Judge Me. See above about The Fighter. This one suffers from its name. "Judge me" feels like passive voice, whereas the song doesn't sound passive at all. Maybe "You Judge Me" would have been better. Regardless, it's a great song and it stays.

Difficult. A straight-ahead "life is hard but fuck that here we go" kind of song. This is a great song for a gym or running playlist! It's totally the soundtrack to "if it were easy everyone would do it" and it stays.

Beginning. Geez, what a piss-poor way to end the album. Self-indulgent folky "intimate" "meaningful" and, for me, unlistenable. Lose it.

We're left with 7 songs at a 33-minute runtime. Perfect. I reordered it a little as long as I was at it, and what I came up with has a solid flow and a good sound.

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1. The King of Metal
2. The Rainbow Fades to Black
3. Judge Me
4. Difficult
5. Fighter
6. One More Step
7. Fate

I suggest giving The King of Metal a listen using this tracklist. If you like any of the songs I cut, wedge them back in there, make it your own. Or maybe add it to the extra tracks to Soundtracks of My Life if you can't make the flow work here. Whatever. They're your songs too, and you're allowed to do whatever you want to that'll make you want to listen to these songs more.

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Been looking for "The Man Who Would Not Die" and "Promise and Terror"on 12" vinyl for sometime with no joy. Does anyone know where I can get my grubby mitts on these 2 gems??(always looking on Discogs and Ebay.) Thanks in advance.

https://planetradio.co.uk/planet-rock/shows/my-planet-rocks/id-202627199/