Iron Maiden - Virtual XI

Iron Maiden – Virtual XI

1998 CMC International Records

1 Star

Virtual XI (Virtual Eleven) is Iron Maiden’s eleventh studio album an second to feature vocals by Blaze Bayley. This album is terrible. This is Iron Maiden’s worst selling album ever. It’s full of weird keyboards the guitars aren’t anything special or new and Blaze Bayley should not have been the singer for Iron Maiden. The only thing I like about this is the album cover.

I can’t even stand to listen to it while I review it. Don’t buy this unless you just have to have everything and even then you could pretend it’s not a real album but a Virtual one.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.

Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

Iron Maiden - Best Of The Beast

Iron Maiden – Best Of the Beast

1996 Raw Power

5 Stars

Best Of The Beast is Iron Maiden’s first greatest hits (best of) album and unfortunately I do not have the two disc limited edition which includes a lot of the songs every Maiden fan needs to have including the Live After Death version of Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.

There is not a lot to say about this album besides it’s a wonderful introduction to Iron Maiden and would be the perfect starting point for any new fan (and maybe all they ever need). If you don’t have all of Iron Maiden’s albums already this is where to start

Normally I’d give you a to start with song list but you should get all of these songs

1. "The Number of the Beast"

2. "Can I Play With Madness"

3. "Fear of the Dark" (Live)

4. "Run to the Hills"

5. "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter"

6. "The Evil That Men Do"

7. "Aces High"

8. "Be Quick or Be Dead"

9. "2 Minutes to Midnight"

10. "Man on the Edge"

11. "Virus"

12. "Running Free" (Live)

13. "Wasted Years"

14. "The Clairvoyant"

15. "The Trooper"

16. "Hallowed Be Thy Name"

This 77 minutes and 53 seconds of heavy metal thunder will rock you every single time you play it.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.

Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

Iron Maiden - A Real Dead One

Iron Maiden – A Real Dead One

1993 Capitol Records

3 Stars

Live albums are usually hit or miss and on this album I think Iron Maiden missed. It’s not bad it just is not really special. The songs were not recorded from one show and they faked the crowd noise to run the songs together as if it were one concert. A lot of the hits are here and they are played well but just don’t have that wow factor that makes you want to play it a million times on your stereo when the studio versions of this are far better.

Iron Maiden have released a lot of live albums at least ten so far although A Real Dead One has been combined with A Real Live One to give us A Real Live Dead One. The best thing about this live album is the album artwork and the awesome Iron Maiden Family Tree poster that is included.

I don’t suggest this album unless you are an Iron Maiden completist and have to have everything. I do however suggest getting their first live album Live After Death.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.

Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

L.A. Guns - Hollywood Vampires

L.A. Guns – Hollywood Vampires
1991 Polydor Records
4 Stars

The third album from L.A. Guns is an excellent but darker sounding twist for the band. On Hollywood Vampires the songs still have that sing along quality that Cocked & Loaded expressed so well but this time out there was more mainstream success with three singles charting in the US and UK. Some Lie 4 Love, Kiss My Love Goodbye and It’s Over Now. This album is loaded with great guitars and the trademark raspy vocals by Phil Lewis that made L.A. Guns a unique sounding band in the metal era.

Ironically It’s Over Now is one of the biggest hits in the career of the band and would be the last mainstream hit the band would have to date. The band would start falling apart in the next few years. Eventually the band would split so much that there are now two bands being called L.A. Guns since 2005.

Hollywood Vampires is among the last of the great 1980’s heavy metal albums as musical styles changed and fans moved on to more alternative sounds in the 1990’s. as with Cocked & Loaded this album has lots to offer but starting out you’ll want to hear Over The Edge, Some Lie 4 Love, Kiss My Love Goodbye, Crystal Eyes, It’s Over Now, Dirty Luv and I Found You.

Fans of Guns N’ Roses, Motley Crue, Faster Pussycat, Love/Hate, and Ratt would enjoy this album.


Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.
Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

Iron Maiden – Piece Of Mind

1983 Capitol Records

5 Stars

Iron Maiden is arguably the greatest heavy metal band of all time and on their third album The Number Of The Beast they proved not only to be considered among the greatest band they produced what is thought of by many as the best heavy metal album of all time. This album featured first time lead vocals by Bruce Dickinson and classic metal guitars by Adrian Smith and Dave Murray that would influence every band claiming to be a metal band from that point forward.

In 1982 The Number Of The Beast came out and found itself being protested and the band being accused of being Satanist. The band often uses dark imagery in their songs but the lyrics of the song The Number Of The Beast were inspired by a dream bass player Steve Harris had after watching the movie Damien: The Omen II. This dream was a nightmare and scared him and things that scare you sometimes make the best art and so the song was created. Iron Maiden are not Satanist they pull inspiration from horror films, television shows, books, biblical references and even other songs by other bands. They are fairly harmless they just want to scare you a little bit.

I did not acquire the album for many years after its release because as a ten year old child you really didn’t have a shot at getting your parents to buy you an album called The Number Of The Beast that featured a monster (band mascot Eddie) and a devil on the cover. Honestly the album scared me back in those days a friend of mine had it on vinyl and we’d go to his house and scare ourselves listening to it. Kids always want to be scared and I remember winning a poster of the album cover at a local festival and I put it on the wall inside my closet because it scared me but I still liked it and wanted to look at it every now and then . . . plus my parents didn’t know I had it and it probably wouldn’t have went over well.

Of the eight songs on the album two of the greatest heavy metal songs ever written appeared one being the previously mentioned The Number Of The Beast and the amazing Run To The Hills. You will want this whole album if you want to know metal at its best but for those of you on a budget and buying tracks from iTunes or some other download service you’ll want to be sure to get Hallowed Be Thy Name and The Prisoner. Newer versions of the album contain either one or two bonus tracks.

If you like any heavy metal band that has ever made its existence known then you probably should own this album.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.

Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

L.A. Guns - Cocked & Loaded

L.A. Guns – Cocked & Loaded
1989 Vertigo Records/PolyGram Records
5 Stars

L.A. Guns comes out on their second album with Guns blazing. The sound is bigger guitar solos are on fire and memorable songs fill these fourteen tracks. The band establish themselves as a solid member of the 80’s heavy metal elite with a top 40 album and brilliant rockers’ and an amazing power ballad in The Ballad Of Jayne that anyone who listened to rock radio or is a fan of 1980’s heavy metal couldn’t help but remember.

L.A. Guns had found themselves in the game with the big boys of the time and finally had freed themselves of the relationship with Guns N’ Roses. The songs on this album are catchy sing along anthems that although didn’t rip up the charts did get rock radio play and certified Cocked & Loaded as arguably one of the best mainstream heavy metal albums of 1989.

Where to start is a tough call because there is goodness in the entire album but if I were to send you to iTunes with a limited amount of songs I’d recommend Rip and Tear, Never Enough, The Ballad Of Jayne, Magdalaine, 17 Crash and the CD only track I Wanna Be Your Man.

Fans of Guns N’ Roses, Motley Crue, Faster Pussycat, Love/Hate, and Ratt would enjoy this album.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.
Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

L.A. Guns - L.A. Guns

L.A. Guns – L.A. Guns

1988 Vertigo Records/PolyGram Records

3 Stars

L.A. Guns is the band that combined with Hollywood Rose to form the original lineup of Guns N’ Roses. L.A. Guns are a gritty hard rockin’ Los Angeles heavy metal band that who although had great songs couldn’t breakthrough to longtime mainstream superstardom. On the L.A. Guns debut album Tracii Guns wails on his guitar as Phil Lewis raspy vocals lead you through eleven dirty glam metal rockers.

The album is full of songs worthy of any band in L.A. during the 1980’s metal scene but although the band released videos for One Way Ticket, One More Reason, Sex Action, Electric Gypsy, Bitch is Back, and Cry No More in 1988 but mainstream radio did not pick up on any of these singles. Fans of heavy metal new of L.A. Guns and the relationship to Guns N’ Roses but this album sadly went unnoticed until the release of their second album Cocked & Loaded.

The only problem with the L.A. Guns album is that there is no real anthem no real hit song that towers above the others or makes them stand out. If you want to rock this album will rock you but it won’t have you singing in the shower or in the halls of local high school but they will find the right formula on their sophomore album Cocked & Loaded.

I have rated this album 3 stars but it is a very high three stars and is almost a 4 star effort.

You will want to check out the songs that were released on video first One Way Ticket, One More Reason, Sex Action, Electric Gypsy, Bitch is Back, and Cry No More.

Fans of Guns N’ Roses, Motley Crue, Faster Pussycat, Love/Hate, and Ratt would enjoy this album.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.
Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

Lillian Axe - Psychoschizophrenia

Lillian Axe – Psychoschizophrenia

1993 I.R.S. Records / Grand Slamm Records

3 stars

Lillian Axe return with an album that is a bit heavier and seems to be infuenced more by some of the alternative rock that is coming out in the early 1990’s. The music here is not bad it just doesn’t provide anything really amazing. The heavier sound just isn’t heavy enough. Ron Taylor’s vocals are as always clear and easy to sing along with and if there is a moment that makes this album worth buying is the beautiful ballad The Needle And Your Pain a stripped down acoustic song about saving a loved one from their addictions.

Crucified and Sign Of The Times are two of the heavier songs worth checking out along with the ballads The Needle and Your Pain and The Day I Met You. You would probably do best just borrowing this album from a friend.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.

Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

Lillian Axe - Poetic Justice

Lillian Axe – Poetic Justice

1992 I.R.S. Records / Grand Slamm Records

3 stars

Poetic Justice finds Lillian Axe stepping down to indie lable I.R.S. Records. This album is good but finds itself lacking that special something that made their previous album Love And War so great.

There are still moments of heavy metal big hair wonderfulness. Let’s start with the cover art of the less than amused grandmother with a battle axe in hand this may be one of the funniest album covers ever. Strong points are the songs True Believer, Living In The Grey, See You Someday, and gem of the album No Matter What. The rest of the album just isn’t strong enough to make it essential.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.

Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

Lillian Axe - Love and War

Lillian Axe – Love And War

1989 MCA Records

5 Stars

Lillian Axe arrived on the scene a little too late to be heavy metal superstars but on this there second album they provided 10 tracks of pure 80’s heavy metal sing along anthems that every fan of that time should have in their collection. Complete with big guitar solos by Steve Blaze and powerful raspy vocals by Ron Taylor this CD rocks form start to finish. Lillian Axe didn’t climb the charts like a lot of other metal bands from the 1980’s but I promise you that you are missing out on a classic album that not a lot of people know about.

This album is loaded with great songs but does not seem to be available on iTunes at this time but if it someday does become available you will want to download as starters All’s Fair In Love And War, She Like’s It On Top, The World Stopped Turning and My Number.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.

Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.

Iron Maiden - Piece Of Mind

Iron Maiden – Piece Of Mind
1983 Capitol Records
5 Stars

Iron Maiden returns in 1983 with another strong heavy metal classic. Some say that this is a better album than The Number Of The Beast. The charts were kinder this time around with Piece Of Mind reaching number 70 on Billboards Hot 200 albums chart while their previous album only reached number 150. Radio singles also charted much higher.

The band stayed with their formula of getting song themes from movies and books using horror as the backdrop for the tales told in their music. An interesting influence would be Greek mythology on Flight of Icarus one of the bands biggest singles. Along with biblical references and nightmare imagery this album is almost a part two to The Number Of The Beast album.

This album features more of the classic Iron Maiden sound featuring fast paced guitars, and thundering bass and drums that are all completed with soaring vocals by Bruce Dickinson. You will definitely want to have this in your heavy metal collection and tracks I suggest that you start with are Flight Of Icarus, Die With Your Boots On, The Trooper, Where Eagles Dare and Revelations.

Some versions of this album contain bonus songs or multimedia videos on enhanced CD’s.

If you like any heavy metal band that has ever made its existence known then you probably should own this album.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.
Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.