No Prayer for the Dying

In my journey through the Iron Maiden albums I knew one thing. I knew that Iron Maiden could never make a truly bad record. As I am going through their discography I have found Maiden to be pretty overrated, but I always understood why they're regarded as the best heavy metal bands of all time. I have come to the conclusion that they are not my cup of tea. With saying all that, I don't even think die hard fans would like this album as much. I'm not saying "No Prayer for the Dying" sucks, but it's obviously not the same standard as the last seven albums. I mean, you have to think about it. Iron Maiden put out seven albums before this. They're not all going to be winners. In my opinion, they dropped off a bit after "The Number of the Beast" only to pick back up in "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son". Maybe I shouldn't have assumed that Iron Maiden found their perfect sound on their eighth album, but I did have somewhat higher hopes for this one. However, the final product was a huge step back.

Listening to this with 2019 ears, all I can think about is how dated this album sounds. I always defended the previous Maiden entries by saying that you can listen to any of them now and still be blown away by the musicianship. On "No Prayer for the Dying", it really sounds like it came from 1990. The production value doesn't have that pop like previous albums. Everything sounds so watered down. It's a shame because the talent from these guys is obviously high. On this release, Dickinson sounds tired and the solos are a mess in certain songs. In the title track, "No Prayer for the Dying", the solo honestly sounds random. Dave Murray and Janick Gers are great musicians, but the guitar work on this song is painful to listen to. When the solo does come on, it sounds like it was added in post and took five minutes. It reminds me of a "I can make this random series of strings sound fast and good". A lot of the solos on this release feel like they were meant for speed when the vocals are slowed down.

Most, if not all, of the songs are played at a pretty slow pace for Maiden. I was actually kind of taken back by their simplicity. It's kind of the reason why I gave this release the score that I did. My past complaints were that Dickinson desperately tried to keep up while the rest of the guys played at a fast pace. On "No Prayer for the Dying", I feel like the guys had to slow down for Dickinson's singing. It's probably not the case at all, but that's what it sounds like to me. The mediocrity on the album is astounding and that doesn't only go for the instrumentals.

The lyrics on this album are just plain bad. The worst case of this is the song "The Assassin". The lyrics to the chorus on this album are

"Better watch out, cos I'm the Assassin
Better watch out, Better watch out
Assassin"

Honestly, this is insulting. Iron Maiden has shown that they can write really good songs if they wanted to. Eight albums in and they write this kind of garbage. It feels like a high schooler scribbled that on some paper while he was bored in class. For Christ sakes, a song is called "Public Enema Number One". It doesn't sound like it, but even that song has some better writing than this. Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad. "Run Silent Run Deep", "Mother Russia", and "Tailgunner" are good examples of lyricism on here. The rest is hard to read.

Overall, it's not a super shitty Iron Maiden album. I know that Maiden is not capable of writing complete trash. This is just almost straight down the middle for me compared to the others. On the other hand I know that this is Maiden's eighth album, so I can't judge it too harshly. It's completely decent for what it is and I know people will really like the slowed down instrumentals and Dickinson's raspy singing. Coming from a casual Maiden listener however, I'm still pretty let down by this.

Recommended songs: "Holy Smoke", "Hooks in You" and "Mother Russia"