Who are the greatest band of all time? Some might go with the Beatles, some with the Stones. Some poor misguided souls might even go on about The Smiths. This is because they haven’t been listening to Maiden.
As the Spectre likes nothing better than to open a bottle of rum and stick on ‘Somewhere In Time’ really, really fucking loud at 3am, we thought it was high time we celebrated the sheer genius that has given us..well, an awful lot of songs about airborne dogfights and swordfighting, and given the gift of confidence in spandex to 40 year old men everywhere.
So it is, in honour of their first cinema release (and Janick Gers being in the pub the other night and reminding me to do this), Electric Spectre proudly presents our very first themed event: IRON MAIDEN WEEK!
Each day this week we’ll give you a bunch of videos, facts, figures and general crap on the best band ever – and thanks to the nice people at EMI Music, maybe even the chance to win a few things too – Check the site daily for updates, and follow us on twitter to increase your chances.
As the weather turns ever colder and the nights ever darker, it seems only fitting that we get round to covering some Goth on ES, and they don’t come much Gothier than London’s (And formerly Warsaw’s) Higher Love.
While The Cure are the obvious touchstone throughout this demo, there are touches of U2 (Especially in the twangy, hangy guitar lines) and Joy Division to be had, and at least a faint glimmer of perrenial underdogs London After Midnight and some very early (Read: very odd) Human League. There’s certainly a very 80s vibe going on, and the heavily accented vocals actually help add to the generally vampiric atmosphere at times, putting me in mind of Outcast (not the “Hey-Yah!” Andre 3000 ones..), and this has the potential to be a major selling point for the band, if only they weren’t quite so po-faced (Or possibly “Poe” faced?) about it all. Goth, while being deadly serious, is also an inherently ridiculous form, and it’s best practitioners know and play on this. This failing is unfortunately particularly apparent on “Do you talk about love”, where amatuerish production and deadly seriousness combine to create humour for all the wrong reasons.
Fortunately things pick up on closer “Piece of Mind” which doesn’t just steal it’s title from Iron Maiden, with a nice “Remember Tomorrow”-esque opening riff which unfortunately then fails to go anywhere. This is a major stumbling block for the band, as a lot of the time songs noodle along as if waiting to burst into action. While this could be used to create a sense of impending dirge-like dread, here it just leaves the impression of choruses hunting for a song to join.
Overall a touch more pomp and cicumstance wouldn’t go amiss here, as songs are a little short and the aforementioned production needs some serious beefing up. If they get it right, then they could easily hang out in the graveyard with Moonspell.
Puck are obviously a band who have worked hard on their sound, for a demo this is super slick with a solid, clear production that showcases frontlady AmyJay’s soaring vocals. If anything however, this could be as much a problem as a bonus. Things start promisingly enough, with a chunky, stonery riff introducing opener”Fly”. Once those vocals kick in however, the heavy edge quickly rubs off. I’ve mentioned the slick production, and combined with the high end vox there’s a definite touch of 80s and early 90s rock to this, Heart and Vixen springing to mind (and bizarrely, the fictional Tia Carrera fronted band from “Wayne’s World”!).
While the band are all good musicians there’s a certain lack of direction, and a slightly dated approach to songwriting that could hinder the band’s commercial success (I could of course be completely wrong, and they may conquer the US market the way groups like Train have previously- never underestimate the power of MOR), likewise the vocals are excellent, but perhaps a little too sweet, giving proceedings a definite touch of the Miley Sirus-es. Final track “All We Got” does try to update things with an angular, jumpy verse that hints at Artic Monkeys, but then the huge 80s chorus turns the whole thing into “I’m Still Standing”-lite (If you can imagine such a thing).
Overall shows a great deal of promise and if reviews by the likes of PowerPlay and HardRockHouse are anything to go by, knows it’s audience perfectly, but a sense of direction and some updating are needed if they want to avoid living next to Asia in the melodic hard rock ghetto.
Do video games help eye-hand coordination? It’s an old argument, but it seems they do when the hand in question is built from hacked game hardware. Yep, proving that they are just as likely to get lost in a WoW quest as the rest of us, DARPA Scientists have revealed new generation robot arms that they built using “Guitar Hero” Controllers. Apparently the controllers can easily be wired up to chest muscles, using their “Twitch Control” software to allow amputees easy control. Can’t wait for the Flying-V version!
In my spare time, I have often thought about powering my Marshall stack with a hydrogen bomb, but it seems I’ve been beaten to it by Andrew Murray, a physicist at the University of Manchester, UK., who has found a way to trap atoms using his old amps! Now, while this has obvious applications for stadium rock pyrotechnics shows, it may also help in the development of quantum computers.Previously scientists used a complex system of lasers and force fields (much like an Iron Maiden concert) in order to trap super-cooled atoms so they can be examined – very useful if you’re into your physics, but hard to do, and not terribly accurate. The solution? Use an old amp speaker instead! According to Murray:
“The alternating [magnetic] field can be used to trap atoms as long as we ensure that the laser beams change polarisation along with it,” says Murray. “We can switch the fields off about 300 to 500 times faster [than before].” That’s fast enough to ensure that the atoms have not had time to escape the trap when they are zapped with an electron beam.
Basically producing an instant, accurate atom-trap! Good news for physicists, and if can be adapted to hold punters still, then great news the next time I play a gig and the audience tries to leave!
