Iron Maiden 's highly anticipated seventeenth studio album is approaching. Senjutsu arrives this Friday, September 3rd, and the Wikimetal had the privilege of listening to the entire album in advance.
The album was the subject of this Wednesday's episode of The Wikimetal Happy Hour , featuring Nando Machado and Daniel Dystyler , co-founders of the site, and special guest Bruno Sutter , which also arrived on digital platforms as episode #330 of the Wikimetal .
Senjutsu Iron Maiden 's best release in the last 30 years in the site's review – despite the undeniable quality of Brave New World (2000) – but more skeptical fans will find interesting counterpoints in the discussion, with positive and negative aspects of each track.
Sutter admits that he took on the role of "annoying guy" during the conversation, mainly observing technical aspects and the musical production of the album based on his own experience as a musician and also as a Maiden fan for decades.
READ ALSO: We listened to Senjutsu! Check out everything about Iron Maiden's best album in almost 30 years!
“Precisely because I’m such a big fan and love the records so much, I see them with a different mindset, with a production mindset. Since I work making music and lived with a group of people for 20 years, I understand perfectly and can visualize what the relationship between them must have been like and what it is like today,” explained the musician and comedian.
In Sutter's view, in many tracks the concept of "less is more" should have been applied with the rigor of Martin Birch , the legendary producer responsible for all of the band's albums from The Killers (1981) to Fear of the Dark (1992) , whose insistence on getting the best possible take had already infuriated Bruce Dickinson during the recording of The Number of the Beast .
“For me, the biggest Achilles' heel of this album is the lack of a producer. Kevin Shirley is credited with producing the albums, but he only presses the record button, that's the truth. When you already have an established band, 50 years of band and people working together for a long time, making an iconic album is a real challenge because there are so many ideas,” he explained. “To put everything together on a 40-minute album, back in the vinyl era, you have to cut a lot of things and there are a lot of arguments. In this case, the producer is the guy who coordinates all of that (…) and I believe that, after so many years, they must be thinking, 'I had this idea!', 'Oh, okay, let's go!'”
Despite agreeing with the impeccable quality of Dickinson's voice on the album, as well as the excellent storytelling, Sutter cited two points he considered the main weaknesses: the "karaoke guitar," which are solos that accompany the melody of the vocal line in the chorus, and the "one-finger keyboardist," with keyboard entries lacking harmonies, both characteristics noted in the single "Stratego."
To watch the entire conversation, see below.
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