Track title: “The Edge of Darkness”
Album: The X Factor
Year: 1995
Written by: Steve Harris/Blaze Bayley/Janick Gers
Subject: Vietnam?
Type: Slow brooder to fast rocker. Um.
Length: 6:39
Familiar? No
Rating: 4/10
Ah well, it had to happen some time! Here we go with a track, the first track – in this thread, not on the album – from the much and in my view correctly-maligned first album following Bruce Dickinson's departure. I've been unremitting in my critcism of this album, but has that been fair? I haven't listened to it again since it was released, so that's over twenty years now, so perhaps I'll have mellowed towards it, or some of it. Yeah...
It's got a dark, brooding opening anyway, which actually reminds me seriously of Bon Jovi's “As My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms” (shut up; what do you know?) and the vocal when it comes in from Bayley first is low and almost muttered, but then he explodes into life as Nicko's drums pound in alongside the guitars with a sort of staccato beat before the familiar Maiden riffs come in and the song starts to trip along. Blazing solos (that's specifically for you, Batty) coming in now as Bayley fades out, coming back in strongly but then everything slows down and the rhythm returns to that staccato thing I was talking about earlier, fading out on almost acoustic guitar as Bayley's voice murmurs the last lines. Okay, not terrible, but a long way from the kind of thing I expect from Maiden.
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