The invaders repel from the north

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

10/09/21 : Senjutsu - Iron Maiden


I'm not a Maiden fan, but when I forced to experience them before I didn't hate them as much as I was expecting to but just found it all a bit samey - and I wasn't expecting to notice any huge difference listening to their latest offering.  And I'm pretty certain I wasn't going to need 80 minutes of it...

Yeah - it's the same sort of thing.  I can tell there's a lot of skill involved and they're making the sounds they want to make - and I don't even mind one or two tracks taking in isolation (although maybe not the 12:39 of "The Parchment").  But a whole album's worth is just too much for me, I'm afraid.

We're at #2 in the chart this week - this album debuted there and hung around in the top 20 for 4 weeks, so they've got better staying power than a lot of bands.  Other new entries in the top 10 were Drake (#1), Little Simz (#4), Imagine Dragons (#7) and The Wildhearts (#9) - another eclectic mix for you (and Little Simz wins hands down of the albums I've heard).

Wikipedia has more on the album than I was expecting and I learned that the album name roughly translates as "tactics and strategy" and that "although it is not a concept album, doom is a recurring theme throughout".  And there was me thinking it was all about fluffy bunnies!  A large amount of the entry is dedicated to the list of heavy metal magazines and websites that declared this to be one of their albums of the year and there are some great names listed - Greek Rebels, Radio Futuro, Yardbarker and Whiplash.net.  And, somewhat bizarrely, The Yorkshire Post.  The album did really well commercially - #1 in a load of countries (and making the top ten of the year in Germany and Switzerland), but it didn't quite make it to the top here or in the US (#2 and #3 respectively).  I also learned that Iron Maiden formed in 1975 - when I was 7!

"Customers also listened to" all the names you'd suspect - if you're a fan of this kind of thing, then you don't need me telling you them.  Personally, I'm not a fan, but I can see it has merits which people enjoy and this is the second album of theirs I haven't minded nearly as much as some others from this genre.

03/09/21 - Avoid
17/09/21 - One for the old men

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