Nightman Listens To – Bruce Dickinson – Balls To Picasso (Non Maiden Series)!

Greetings, Glancers – it’s Brucey time! It’s a long time since my last Bruce solo outing, and in truth that was pretty crap. This was his first album after fully leaving Maiden. Unlike his debut, this one I haven’t heard of at all, and I don’t remember anything about it from around the time of its release. I don’t recognise any of the ten tracks below, though at least they sound metal. CLICHES!

‘Cyclops‘ this opens with a bit of an Iron Man vibe, albeit with some pseudo-industrial 90s beats and sounds. I’m not sure how to feel about it, then a crunching riff drops and I suddenly feel a lot better. It spends its time getting to the first verse, then Bruce begins singing, theatrical as always, sounding revitalized. He’s sneering and yelping. The chorus reminds me of Brutal Planet. It’s a while since I heard Tattooed Millionaire, but this feels heavier than anything off his debut. It doesn’t sound like anything Maiden would write, which I suppose is the point. The guitar attack and tone is completely different from your Maiden style, but I can see most Maiden fans getting behind this, even if it is a harsher sound. A great extended instrumental to close out.

‘Hell No‘ opens interestingly enough. A tribal, looping beat. I can only imagine this sounded quite modern in 94. It’s a type of metal I’m not overly familiar with so it feels fresh to me. It carries on with ominous verse and booming chorus. Nicely layered vocals in the chorus – these always sound great when you have as powerful a singer as Bruce. There’s a whispering, then shouting middle 8 just for fun. It’s a good follow up to the first track.

‘Gods Of War‘ has another different type of drum intro. I’m going to level with yoy, let you see behind the curtain. I’m writing this sentence, listening to the song for the first time on 24th March 2020. Earlier today I listened to AC-DC’s Highway To Hell album for the first time and was pissed off by how similar each song was and by how samey the drums were. Basically every song followed the same rhythm, format, and beat. Here we are, three songs into this album and each one has been different in form, rhythm, and beat. But enough of that. I like the more tender nature of the verse and how the pre-chorus veers between effervescent, epic, and vicious. The chorus itself isn’t the best, but there’s a great solo and rhythm section in there. I hope this continues, but so far this is a vast improvement over the first album.

‘1000 Points Of Light‘ opens with a repetitive series of crunching chorus before the venomous drums and vocals join. The verses are somewhat monotone yet there is an underlying layer of funk. The chorus offers more in terms of melody, the instrumental breaks up the funk quota, and the second verse mostly dispenses with guitar. It’s the little changes and choices which prevent this mostly average song from being boring. We even get a little soft jazz ballad breakdown in between solos somewhere in the middle. If the verses were less monotone this would be better.

‘Laughing In The Hiding Bush‘ has a more disjointed feel in its opening moments before the verse finds coherence thanks to another near tribal beat and a great snarling vocal. This time its the verses which offer the more interesting melody over the chorus. Not a lot too this one, just a simple hard rock song.

‘Change Of Heart‘ begins with, is that a slight Latino feel? The beat and the guitar tone certainly suggest as much. The verse vocal is despondent and mournful. Melodically it reminds me of Audioslave’s Like A Stone. I’m waiting for the metal to come. A crunch of sorts comes for the chorus, it’s a brief chorus – I would have liked a little more to it, but it’s good while it lasts. It’s a song which feels like it could have been, in the right ot wrong hands, a power ballad in another life. Dickinson keeps things grounded, even when he’s tackling subject matter he usually doesn’t, such as here.

‘Shoot All The Clowns‘ has a beat which a lot of rock bands adopted in the mid 90s, or which a lot of pop artists did when they wanted a little more oomph. It does feel a little, not dated, but it does scream mid 90s. Dickinson is enjoying the vocals here, giving it the snarl from his previous two Maiden albums. It’s all quite funky too and was that a Welcome To The Jungle in joke? It all continues in this vein until Bruce decides to give rap a crack, and a fair crack it is because we know the man can do anything. A strange entry in his canon, but it’s quite fun.

‘Fire‘ has a good old fashioned dinosaur stomping riff and drum intro which treads onward through the verse. Now this one reminds me of Slash’s Snakepit and several other rock and metal bands of the 90s. It’s loud and violent and it cruises but the melody isn’t there so it slips from memory. There’s a little hook in the chorus. Is that actually Slash playing the solo – it sure feels like him.

‘Sacred Cowboys‘ brings the speed again. It also brings the rap again. It’s cool that Bruce is trying stuff that he either wouldn’t or couldn’t in Maiden. Jeepers, take a breath there son, you’ll faint. It’s another which lacks melody in the vocals, until the chorus which thankfully is a good one. I’m not sure I’d listen to this again, but it does stand out in memory as one to recommend to fans who may not have heard it – just as a bit of an oddity and something different. Bruce keeps it from being a failure and there’s some variance and depth in the instrumentation.

‘Tears Of A Dragon‘ closes the album. There’s different versions of this, I’m going for the 8 minute one, which certainly begins in epic form, all pianos and building. Then it enters a phase with some muted guitar which reminds me of one of my all time favourite songs – Dangerous Tonight. The verses are a little cheesy but we’ll excuse him. It builds to what I assume is the chorus – epic melodies. Yeah, it is more cheese than not, but it’s good and I think I would have loved it more if Id heard it at the time. Into an instrumental section which soon begins to gallop along with all manner of string synth sounds. It even manages to sound like Beat It. And like a precursor to Knights Of Cydonia. Good solo. From the name, he’s obviously poking fun at the whole thing. I like it – it doesn’t hit the peaks of other epics I love, but like I say – many of those epics I’ve been listening to for more than 20 years so this would have some catching up to do regardless. Then he rips the arse out of it for the final minute.

This was a much stronger effort than Bruce’s first solo. While I couldn’t identify a common thread tying it all together, beyond Bruce and beyond it being a hard rock album, there wasn’t anything bad I can pull away from it. Mostly good songs, a few very good songs, and the rest are passable. Metal vocalists don’t have a great track record when they go solo, but I’d wager that this is one of the better ones and there’s a lot here for fans of heavy music to enjoy.

Nightman’s Playlist Picks: Cyclops. Gods Of War. Change Of Heart. Tears Of A Dragon.

Nightman Listens To – Samson – Head On! (Iron Maiden Solo Output Series)

Greetings, glancers! As I warned you previously, it’s time to listen to some more of the Iron Maiden side-output. So where is the Iron Maiden connection you ask? Keep reading and you’ll learn. Samson were another NWOBHM band emerging in the late 70s and featured at various times both Clive Burr on drums and Bruce Dickinson on vocals. Dickinson joined as their first album (Survivors) was released, but played no part on it. We’ll skip that one. Head On was their second album, released in 1980, features Bruce on vocals and an early version of The Ides Of March which would appear in a different format on Maiden’s second album. It’s all very confusing, as is much of metal. How about I shut up and listen before the executioner on the album cover fulfills his wish and fists me?

‘Hard Times‘. I listened to the first track of Survivors first – As imagined the production isn’t stellar, but gives a very raw, garage feel. The bass was very prominent, has a very rusty feel (I mean that as a positive), and was overall a fine punk influence track. This has a similar production, possibly a little thinner, and Dickinson has a weird and unnecessary effect on his vocals. He sounds young here, but not unrecognizable. The song itself is fun, a clear enjoyable riff, but the whole thing is let down by very tinny drums which sound more like someone tapping a pen on a table in places. The drumming itself is fine, the guitar solo is serviceable following a descending rhythm, and it feels fairly commercial. I’m guessing it’s named after the Bronson/Hill movie based on the lyrical content.

‘Take It Like A Man‘ starts with some distant whistling, what sounds like someone chucking a milk bottle, then the crunching guitars come in nicely. The intro is at odds with the eventual verse – it has an early Di’anno era Maiden feel actually, a rough edge, a joyful intensity, and a sense of fun and ambition. Dickinson sounds pretty different here, the drums are excellent, if again a little under-produced, and the guitars are good. Bruce does let out a trademark screech at one point. Good song.

‘Vice Versa‘ opens with cascading drums before shifting into some bizarre slow tempo, otherwordly verse. It’s interesting, and I like it, and as it progresses the effects give way and a more traditional vocal and sound emerges. The drums here are hilarious, going off on their own Keith Moon or Mastodon style, using it as a lead instrument rather than providing a beat and fill. There’s a lot of phasing on the guitars, Bruce singing ‘vice versa’ actually sounds more like ‘bite faster’ or ‘fight bison’. We get a groovy instrumental section in the middle followed by a very abrupt stop and return to the verse. PS: I know what this reminded me of – One Track Lover from Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place. 

‘Manwatcher‘ opens with another dirty riff, Bruce’s vocals following its melody. There isn’t a chorus so it feels a little repetitive, at least so far. Samson loves those sudden pauses. It’s moving off into a new section now which bears little resemblance to the first part aside from the obvious. Again the drums are maybe the best part, good guitar solo, but its still let down by the production – listening through Youtube certainly isn’t helping. Bruce doesn’t sound like himself here – less force, less volume.

‘Too Close To Rock‘ gets straight to the point, big riff and hanging backing chords, the riff feeling a little Zeppelin-esque and having little changes each time. Bruce really sounds like Bruce here, though the drum sound is again a let down. The song suddenly shifts around the minute mark for what I suppose is a chorus, but feels like a random charging increase of pace. There is another verse and chorus, followed by an electric, energetic instrumental/solo section. I like how without warning these shifts are – no pre chorus or change of beat, just straight in almost as if there was something edited out. It’s refreshingly short, and closes on a trademark Brucie ‘WAOOW!’

‘Thunderburst’ reminds me in its opening moments of Alice In Chains – acoustic, mysterious, ominous. Then the thunderburst comes in, crushing guitars, tumbling drums. As Maiden fans will surely note, this is an early version of The Ides Of March and in all honesty it isn’t much different.

‘Hammerhead‘ starts with a little drum snap before another cool riff. This does suffer from those silly group vocals shouts that I always hate but the melodies, especially in the chorus are reminiscent of some 80s Maiden tracks – just commercial enough to widen the listening net. The drums are good again, but you know by now the production lets things down. There seems to be some sort of breaking glass noises in the background too. There is a sort of middle 8th or change in the middle where a lot of the distortion is withdrawn – it changes things up just a little before the obligatory solo. It’s another good New Wave metal song that I had no idea about previously, not too sure about the fade out ending though.

‘Hunted‘ sees the band almost breaking out into a bit of funk. There’s a prominent bass line and some Di’Anno style verse vocals. Nice reverb on the guitar gives the song an air of mystery, the backing guitar lines have a nice crunch to them. The chorus is a bit of a let down, musically and lyrically, but we can forgive it as the song as a whole is short. Interesting ending too.

‘Take Me To Your Leader‘ has a weirdo intro, effects and flange, but it’s only for a few seconds before the speed pounces on you. This one sounds much more like the Bruce we know, lots of screams and yelps, and the pace is relentless. You know the score by now – drums, playing – great, production – not so great. Nifty bass again here, and the lyrics are amusing. This one seems like it had a bit more thought in the construction, it’s more dynamic, and it has another interesting ending. The band had ideas, weren’t merely playing hard and fast.

‘Walking Out On You‘ opens with a plodding single bass note, like someone flicking an elastic band. Then a lot of weird stuff happens – noises, distorted choir vocals, creaks, alien guitars – I wasn’t expecting anything like this, so props to them. This goes on for about a minute before a more traditional song structure emerges. It’s heavy, slow, then the volume withdraws and we get a more subtle verse – still lots of effects on the vocals and guitar, and the drums are still doing their own thing. The whole quiet verse, loud chorus thing had mostly been perfected by Zep, but it’s nice to see an actual metal band giving it a go. Nice instrumental section in the middle with guitar parts I quite enjoyed, the beat remaining steady throughout. The final minute goes a bit crazy, with Christmas bells, spoken parts, kids, all sorts of weird effects and oddities.

‘Angel With A Machine Gun‘ gets this back to basics – simple riff, Brucey vocals, tight playing, fact pace, standard British metal lyrics. As seems to be the case with the band, they add the occasional little twist – a brief drum interlude or twist on the existing guitar riff. Otherwise, this is straightforward stuff, nothing startling, but plenty of energy and fun.

‘Kingsway Jam‘ is apparently a bonus track. It’s near 10 minutes long too  – will it be instrumental? We get stuck in straight away – a fade in to chaos, drums blasting and distant guitars twiddling. Bruce unleashes one so we’re not in instrumental territory. This feels like a live track from the production, the vocals are noticeably less polished on this one, but I could attribute that to them simply arsing about in the studio with this one. Guitar and drums are good as always. This ostensibly follows a verse and chorus format, just that there are longer jams between each, at least until the 4.30 mark where the pace slows and Bruce starts talking hilariously. He’s laughing as he does it, adding to the banter. This settles into a more routine steady slow jam, along with some fairly funny lyrics, and more instrumental pieces. It’s your standard bonus track jam in other words.

Overall I would say this was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed it a lot more than Bruce’s first solo effort, and I think I was relieved that it didn’t succumb to many of the tropes and ‘mistakes’ of early 80s metal. There’s a lot of ideas, if not full blown ambition on display, and there is that unmistakable quirky sense of fun which comes from the band being British – there are a lot of tongues in cheeks, but the band prove they can play with the best of them. It’s a shame the production isn’t the best – the overall sound has a lot of hissing and the drums lose the impact which they no doubt would have had with a fuller sound. Nevertheless, this is one I’ll listen to again and one I’d recommend to any fellow metal heads who enjoy this era or are looking into the past.

Let us know in the comments what you think of Head On and if you have any special memories of the band or the time!

Nightman’s Playlist Picks: Take It Like A Man. Take Me To Your Leader. Hammerhead.

 

Nightman Listens To – Maiden Solo/Other Output

Greetings, Glancers! As many of you may know, I’ve always been a bit of a metal fan and rank Iron Maiden as one of my favourite bands. One thing I’ve never actually bothered to do though is listen to the other work by the various band members – solo or with other bands. And why the hell not? It’s probably crap, as is usually the way with these things, but I’m going to do it anyway, and you can come along for the ride. Oh yeah, I’m not going to bother with the Blaze Bailey or Paul Di’Anno stuff. I can’t be arsed. Maybe one day. For now, here’s a handy list of the albums I’ll be covering:

Bruce Dickinson: Tattooed Millionaire. Balls To Picasso. Skunkworks. Accident Of Birth. The Chemical Wedding. Tyranny Of Souls.

Samson: Survivors. Head On. Shock Tactics.

Steve Harris: British Lion. Calm Before The Storm. The Burning.

Urchin:  Urchin. High Roller. Get Up And Get Out.

ASAP: Silver And Gold

Psycho Motel: State Of Mind. Welcome To The World.

Primal Rock Rebellion: Awoken Broken.

Streetwalkers: Downtown Flyers. Red Card.

Fish: Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

Gillan: Double Trouble. Magic. Gillan’s Inn.

Trust – Savage

Gordon Giltrap – Giltrap

White Spirit – White Spirit

Smith/Kotzen

Any favourites, let me know!

Nightman Listens To – Bruce Dickinson – Tattooed Millionaire

Greetings, Glancers! As I said in a previous post, it’s time for me to delve into the other output which the the core members of Iron Maiden have released over the years. I don’t know much about any of these, I don’t have high hopes of any of them being any good, but if any of them are then it’s going to be Brucey’s solo stuff. While we’re here, we may as well listen to the bonus tracks from the various re-releases. Lets go.

‘Son Of A Gun‘ opens with a tinny, distant, atmospheric riff. Sounds like early Maiden. Dickinson singing in his more traditional voice than the gruff approach. Slow, heavy. Doesn’t have an 80s vibe, just sounds like classic metal/rock. The chorus isn’t great melodically, and on the whole it’s very simple – not too many risks or progressive elements – I was expecting it to get faster at some point but it stays on the same level throughout.

‘Tattooed Millionaire‘ is one I may have heard at some point, but I can’t remember. This one is very 80s and does feature a more Fear of The Dark era vocal by Dickinson. It’s a little faster, a little lighter musically – a little more Def Leppard in other words. It has a commercial chorus, though the lyrics are as biting as what Maiden were putting out at the time. Good solo in there, but this is basically a pop song with more prominent guitars. That lead/ending riff also sounds like a copy of Run To You by Bryan Adams.

‘Born In ’58’ starts quite nicely, not metal at all. Nostalgic lyrics. This could be anyone, sounds like stadium rock, but a bit more subtle. It’s quite nice, feels like a centerpiece and Dickinson saying he can do more than just metal. As The Mullet Man might say, this is one for the ladies.

‘Hell On Wheels‘ is slow – ACDC slow. Gruff vocals for the verse, old school for the chorus.  Instead of locked he sings ‘lacked’, that style. Very simple and plain. Standard uninspired rock, okay melodies.

‘Gypsy Road‘ starts slow and soft, similar to ‘Born In 58’. Everything on the album is much lighter than the Maiden wall of sound. It’s Springsteen again, but via Dickinson’s mind and mouth. It’s all very formulaic, verse chorus verse chorus solo chorus end stuff. Melodies okay again.

‘Dive! Dive! Dive!‘ is presumably going to be higher, starting with an ‘Aces High’ vibe. Then it goes… weird. Oh wow oh vocals. No guitars. Drum, bass, vocals. Then guitar and oh wow oh. I won’t call this one formulaic, though there’s nothing outlandish here. It’s just weird, not weird in a good way, weird in a ‘who thought this was a good idea’ way. A good minute long than it needs to be, not that any of it needs to exist.

‘All The Young Dudes‘ is Bowie with Bruce’s voice. If you’ve read my Bowie posts you’ll know I’m not a massive fan of Bowie’s vocals. Bruce does a Bowie mimic here for the most part. Still a good song, but get the feeling that all of these should have just been B-Sides or demos or something.

‘Lickin’ The Gun’ follows what has gone before – gruff vocals, slow pace, basic structure. This one is riff heavy but still sounds weak – middle of the road and uninspired. This could be any 80s rock or soft metal band.

‘Zulu Lulu‘ opens with howls and guitars. That steady pace is here again and we can already tell from the intro how this is going to go. Talky vocals, lots of pauses in the guitar parts, simplistic. Maybe Bruce had all this crap boiling up in him and needed to get it out of system before getting back to Maiden and making good music again?

‘No Lies‘ is, of course, the early Bruce version of Bring Your Daughter, with a very similar opening riff. This feels like a demo as the same few words are repeated over and over. Then in the second minute the lyrics start pouring out. It’s a little bit better than most of the other stuff, but it has the same problems – vocals aren’t great and there’s nothing new or of any decent quality. It just reminds us of better songs – No More Lies due to the title, Bring Your Daughter, and Can I Play With Madness thanks to the drums in places. We have this long section in the middle with drums and distortion and nothing else, a bit of bass that no-one cares about. After this brief dalliance with the pointless we return to the chorus and an okay solo.

‘Spirit Of Joy‘ is the first bonus track. It’s an Arthur Brown cover. A lot of these will be covers. It has a faster pace, sounds better already than most of the album stuff. Not a song I’m overly familiar with but it’s fine.

‘Darkness Be My Friend‘ is not a cover. It starts well, ominous and soft, much better vocal. Like a dark and lonesome folk song. This is easily the best song so far. Then the flute (?) comes in. Yet it works, even if I imagine pixies skipping about a glade or something.

‘Sin City‘ is AC/DC, so not my favourite band. Starts with starty stoppy chops of music. Ding don ding dung. Then the familiar ACDC beat comes in. Then the vocals and the cut-off guitars. Not my thing. Growly vocals sound silly. Shite all round.

‘Winds Of Change‘. Ha ha, this really does sound like G’n’Rs version of Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. And that’s all we’ll remember from this. This is some sort of love song with big Brucey vocals. It’s cheese, but it’s fine.

‘Riding With The Angels‘ is a Russ Ballard cover – he wrote songs for KISS and others. Sounds live. Screeches and talking. At least this is fast and energetic which makes a change from the rest of the album. It sounds both like very early Maiden and early 90s Maiden. Just a bit of throwaway speed fun.

‘Bring Your Daughter‘. You know it. You love it. Or hate it. Maybe you haven’t heard this version. It’s almost the same though, slightly different vocals, different guitars but almost the exact same song.

‘Ballad Of Mutt’. It’s a funny name, and it seems it’s a funny song with some unfortunate vocal appropriation. Still funny though, funny lyrics, standard blues stuff. I wrote a song almost exactly the same as this. Except mine was called ‘Barnaby’.

‘Black Night‘ is Deep Purple. Live again. More energy and speed. You all know this one, right? Feels like Sabbath, but isn’t, so must be Deep Purple. It’s unfortunate when your covers, which aren’t that great, are better than most of the songs on your official album.

So I said at the top I didn’t have high hopes but that this was likely the best? Oh dear. If this is the best, then we’re in for a whole crapload of crap in the coming listens. Mercy, please. Let us know in the comments what you thought of this – did I get it wrong, does it deserve another listen?