Iron Maiden
No Prayer For The Dying (2015 Remaster)

An excellent digipack edition, the musical material needs no comments. In my opinion, the design of the edition is more attractive than the remaster of 1997. For fans, a must-have purchase in the collection!!

The eighth studio album by English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. The album peaked at No. 2 in the UK Albums Chart and contains the band's only UK Singles Chart No. 1, "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter".

It seems especially strange to me that this work was really forgotten, and all over the world, giving free rein to the glory of "The Number Of The Beast" and "Seventh Son Of The Seventh Son". It seems to me impossible to compare or indicate the absoluteness of this album in comparison with other discs of the group, no, here, most likely, a completely different picture - this release is the quintessence of all the band's creativity over the long ten years of studio activity. Now I would like to describe the disc in more detail. The recording quality is somewhere in between "Seventh Son ...." and "Somewhere In Time", but very, very worthy of such a big name as Iron Maiden. Bruce sings, maybe I'll repeat it once more, but it's very interesting - somewhere in a clean beautiful voice, and somewhere in a dirty floor screaming, for which once again he deeply bows to him, so not everyone can work out. It's kind of strange, but the disc opens as it seemed to me the most pretentious and not the best song, this is "Tailgunner" - such a doltish fast heavy. It is followed by the mega hit "Holy Smoke" with damn critical lyrics, something like a mockery of American TV preachers chasing ratings. The next number is the title No Prayer For The Dying, which begins as a traditional Maiden ballad a la Children Of The Damned, but later (as in the already mentioned ballad) develops into a wild and unbridled chopper, where Bruce shouts the words of the song, asking God to give an answer about his life, dreams and prayers, in general, everything is very decorous and not bad. Here are two cool action films "Public Enemy Number One" and "Fates Warning" - similar to each other in their evil and dark atmosphere. The song "The Assassin" seemed somewhat strange to me - I would say that this is the most mysterious song of the Iron Maiden, in the lyrics concerning the feelings of the killer and his activities (probably, they decided to take an example from Slayer). Another super hit is the heaviest on the disc and the most technical "Run Silent Run Deep" - based on the film of the same name. “Hooks In You” is the same as the opening one of “Tailgunner” - well, men cannot change themselves so as not to release a couple of simple action films, in any case, the song does not irritate me, and I never dared to say, that she is somehow bad. "Bring Your Daughter ... to the Slaughter" is the thing! It was written by Bruce Dickinson for his solo project as the soundtrack for A Nightmare on Elm Street Part V, and is truly a scary heavy metal monster, made to storm the hit parades and rip up kids in their dreams! But in general, seriously, this is such a wonderful cocktail of extreme anger and black fun. The final number - the epic "Mother Russia" - well, this is not the same epic as the previous ones, and it is less long - only five minutes and its clinginess is more (most likely due to the simplicity of presentation), but that progressive complexity is still preserved that and pleases. In general, a kind, complex and at the same time ingeniously simple work, not for an amateur in general, but for all other fans of the group it will not be superfluous either. Bravo!

There is a matter of the songs presented here. Tailgunner and Holy Smoke are really good songs. They are up there with some of the band's better numbers and really are quite underappreciated. But other songs like Fates Warning, The Assassin and Hooks In You are also pretty fun songs. They are by no means ground breaking, but they are also far from bad songs.

Between the masterpieces of "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" and "Fear of the Dark", the album "No Prayer for the Dying" looks quite alien. Of course, here there are luxurious compositions "Bring Your Daughter ... to the Slaughter" or "Mother Russia", but everything else by the standards of Iron Maiden looks pale.