Seventh Son of a Seventh Son: Remastered

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
By the release of this landmark eighth album, Iron Maiden had settled into what's generally considered their classic line-up. With Bruce Dickinson, Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Nicko McBrain operating at the very peak of their form, band mastermind, main songwriter and bassist Steve Harris decided to extend the Maiden remit yet further by unveiling their very first concept work. Contemporary critics scoffed in the face of such a grandiose gesture, but Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son spawned no fewer than four British hit singles and remains an indomitable highlight of the Maiden's illustrious career. From the strident commercial metal of "Can I Play With Madness", through the keyboard-enhanced epic bombast of the title track, to the fretboard intricacies and chest-beating machismo of "Only The Good Die Young", Seventh Son finds Iron Maiden at their most assured and creative. Essentially, this is a spectacular example of 22-carat heavy metal. Ian Fortnam

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-09-20 rating:
Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
'Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son' is the first Iron Maiden album I ever bought (quickly followed by everything before or since!) and I have to say it is one I still love after all these years. From the racing album opener 'Moonchild' to storming tracks such as 'Evil That Men Do', 'Clairvoyant' and 'Infinite Dreams' and more besides, this album produces one amazing song after another. In fact I'd go so far to say that this is one of those rare albums where every track is worthy of inclusion and adds to the overall feel of the album. This was initially snubbed by some Maiden fans for it's use of keyboards, but is often recognised as the classic it always was now hindsight can be applied. A great first port of call for new maiden fans, but be warned, like me, you will want to get their back catalogue and see what else they have to offer. A classic album from a British rock institution.

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review by: date: 2008-09-02 rating:
Another masterpiece slaughtered by the "loudness war"
All Iron Maiden albums from "The Number Of The Beast" to "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son" are absolute classics and timeless masterpieces. I grew up listening to these records, and I know every lyric, every pause, every guitar tone and every tempo change by heart. So, more than sad, I'm really angry to have to say that all the "enhanced" 1998 releases are complete sonic disasters, "loudness war" productions with the audio dynamic range slaughtered by whoever was responsible for doing the remastering. It seems that the idea was to turn all the way up the sound of every single instrument and vocal line with no regard to the equilibrium between them within the music's context. I almost cried in anger when I heard those guitar chords at the start of the song "Moonchild", with the originally carefully distorted tone turned into a mass of just plain annoying, pointless distortion, and all the feeling lost.

Every time I get to write about a dear album destroyed by a "loudness war" remaster, I ask people to go to a search engine like Google and look up the expression (between quotes for an exact match). There are over 47,000 results for it on Google alone. The "loudness war" refers to a trend which started in the late nineties in the music industry to record CD's at increasingly higher volume levels, in an attempt to lure buyers into believing that they were getting a better product because it's a "remaster" and it sounds louder. What happens most of the time is the exact opposite - masterpieces like this album are sonically cannibalized, and often (although not the case here) the audio volume is pushed beyond the limits of the CD format's specitications, which causes parts of the sound to get "clipped" (cut off, lost) because they don't "fit" within the available range. I specially recommend that people at least read an online article called "The Death Of Dynamic Range" and watch to a very popular video available on YouTube called "The Loudness War", both of which explain in an easily understandable way what this thing is all about. Things have reached such an extreme point that you can find people on P2P networks sharing lossless files with digitized versions of the original vinyl recordings of entire discographies of seminal bands like Iron Maiden because the CD's currently available are just unbearable to listen to.

As always, it's hard to tell if the band had any say in these releases, but anyway, they are an unacceptable insult to the band's musical legacy and their fans. If you want to hear Iron Maiden closer to how the original records used to sound, look for the first "non-remastered-nor-enhanced" CD releases of their albums.

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review by: Nachos 785 date: 2008-08-13 rating:
Maiden's Best
I'll give the review track by track after this overview. I like this album because it was probably their most progressive of the 80's and featured a lot of great tracks.

Moonchild 8.5/10
A great opener. One of three real claims for best album opener. (The other two are 'caught somewhere in time' and 'invaders' in my opinion).

Infinite Dreams 9/10
A good track, one of Maiden's better ballads.

Can I Play With Madness 10/10
Maiden's best track.

The Evil That Men Do 9/10
A nice track. Not their best.

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son 7/10
Not their best epic. But still good.

The Prophecy 9.5/10
Maidens most underrated track. I think the alternating riffs are fantastic.

The Clairvoyant 8.5/10
Good but not amazing.

Only The Good Die Young 9/10
A good finishing track but not as good as some other finishing efforts.

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review by: TRUE METAL date: 2008-06-18 rating:
Iron Maidens Masterpiece? well all Iron Maidens albums are masterpieces arn't they?
Iron Maiden first concept album and it works brilliant. All the songs are classic. I'd put this on my top 5 Maiden albums. The artwork is awesome aswell. Onto the songs

1. Moonchild - Wicked track with a heavy riff and awesome vocals by Dickinson it's a song that'll be stuck in your head for awhile. 10/10

2. Infinite Dreams - this one took a couple of listen for me to get into but now i love it, it starts of slow for awhile then goes to an awesome solo. 9/10

3. Can I Play With Madness - awesome short song and a short solo brilliant video to. 10/10

4. The Evil That Men Do - again short awesome great solo great song. 10/10

5. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son - Awesome title track the really heavy in the bridge section of the song is amazing. 9/10

6. The Prophecy - Starts of slow for a bit then gets heavy wicked song probably my favourite on the album along with Moonchild and Only The Good Die Young. 10/10

7. The Clairvoyant - Awesome song with a cool bass intro. 9/10

8. Only The Good Die Young - A perfect album closer one of my favourite songs on the albums amazing. 10/10

This album is a brilliant place to start with Iron Maiden not a bad song on it. UP THE IRONS!!!!


review by: jrcsalter date: 2008-03-10 rating:
Iron Maiden 7
According to the information on the CD this is considered by certain members of the band to be their best album ever. It certainly has some good tracks on it, but what lured me into buying it before some others is the fact that it is a concept album. All the tracks revolve around a seventh son of a seventh son; quite appropriate considering this is their seventh album.
There really isn't a dull track on this CD and most of them really stand out on first listening and need no time to appreciate. The opening words of "Can I Play With Madness", the hummable melody of "The Evil The Men Do", the chorus of the titular track and the morbid truth stated in "The Clairvoyant"; all of these and more will be stuck in my head after listening to the album
As with the rest of this series, the CD is packed full of CD ROM content. Two full length videos ("Can I Play With Madness" and "The Evil That Men Do") and clips from "The Clairvoyant" and "Infinite Dreams" (although on my version these last two are mislabelled); you have the option to watch them as a small or large size (large being only about half the size of the screen) but due to the limits of CDs the videos are very grainy. A wealth of information about the making and release of the album, photos, family tree, album art and tour dates are also included.
The CD comes in a standard CD case with a booklet containing lyrics, pictures and album art.
All in all and essential buy for Iron Maiden fans and metal fans in general.
Highlights: "Can I Play With Madness", "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son", "The Clairvoyant"

Track Listing

1. Moonchild 05:40 ****
2. Infinite Dreams 06:09 ****
3. Can I Play With Madness 03:31 *****
4. The Evil That Men Do 04:33 ****
5. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son 09:53 *****
6. The Prophecy 05:05 ****
7. The Clairvoyant 04:27 *****
8. Only The Good Die Young 04:41 ****
Total Time: 43:59

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