Crumbso wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 9:52 am
To add to your excellent explanation, Buffon, I think that a great AB epic has to really have that genuine emotional resonance and catharsis to really make it. I have to feel something and be taken somewhere. As fantastic as Fortress and Dying Light are (and I really do love listening to them) they don't make the hairs on my neck stand up every time.
Completely agree with that.
Personally I've always had that connection with Fortress which I think is just an excellent song all around. Always felt it mixes up the established AB songwriting "formula" in more than one way, while still sounding cohesive as a whole: the lyrics are some of AB's strongest and the different sections of the song (the first two verses, then the first bridge leading into the instrumental section, then the "in the end, too far gone" bit that ties everything out) are not only excellent on their own but work together to tell a good story. And I just love the middle section and solos, reminds me of vintage Metallica / Maiden (thinking of Sanitarium or Fear of the Dark here - not the newer stuff I was whining about earlier
).
Last Hero is a similar song to Fortress in many ways and has a lot of individual sections that I really like: the main riff is amazing, the chorus is a standout in the discography, and the solos (especially the first one from Myles) rock too. But taken as a whole, it doesn't quite fit together as well. I think the breakdown right after the Myles solo is where it loses me: not too big on that one musically (the riff and drums are among the most monotonous they've done), and it all sounds extremely... noisy.
And Dying Light is a particularly annoying example to me of their tendency to overdo the layering on newer albums. That vocal melody in the verse was immediately gripping the first time I heard it, and Myles's voice sounded amazing... for the first two lines, before he started singing on top of himself 3X