Nicko McBrain , drummer for Iron Maiden , is very proud of the result of the band's seventeenth album. In a recent interview with Ultimate Classic Rock , the musician explained all the wonders of Senjutsu , defending points criticized by some of the public, such as the longer track lengths and certain instrumental elements.
In McBrain's opinion, Senjutsu surpasses all of Maiden's releases to date, even when compared to classics like Seventh Son of a Seventh Son , Piece of Mind , or The Number of the Beast . "Without a doubt, it's a work of art. I always say that about our new albums, because these new albums are the best thing we've ever done, you know? If they weren't, we wouldn't have released them, right? But, for me, I believe it's definitely the best album we've ever made," he stated.
The drummer also countered criticism and expressed his admiration for the production by Kevin Shirley and Steve Harris . “Whether it’s our fans, the complainers, the up-and-coming studio engineers, all the people who think they know what sounds like in the studio, [I say to] these 'experts': Okay, you can figure everything out yourself, but Kevin and Steve outdid themselves. They worked hard to make the sound of this album work. Every track is different. That’s what I love about this album,” he defended. “On some of the previous albums, we turned up the drum sound and just went with it on every track. (…) And they [found different sounds] with all the instruments on this album.”
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These changes were also listed as a positive point by the musician. “In many songs – and I don’t think we’ve done this before – we have a guitar line below the vocal melody, which is phrasing the voice. And there are three or four songs where we do this, I think it was something Steve did and thought, ‘Oh, this works really well, so let’s do this.’ I don’t remember songs with the guitar line below the vocal – in the lead vocal, not in a harmony or in the chorus, but alongside the verses. So this was a first,” he said.
Another sensitive point that Nicko McBrain touched on during the interview was the length of the album's longer songs, some exceeding 10 minutes. One of the issues is the harmonic structure of the songs, as well as the need to include solos for all the guitarists .
According to him, the producer tried to warn the band about the length of "The Parchment." "Kevin said, 'Did you guys realize that these songs are over 12 minutes long?' And we were all sitting in the room thinking, 'No way it's 12 minutes. There's no way a song can be that long. Besides, what do you mean by that?'" he joked.