Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Bayley, Blaze
Label: Blaze Bayley Recordings
Release: 2008
Length: 62:28
Rating: 4.5/5
When the former Iron Maiden singer put out “Blood And Belief” in 2004, his ship ended up in the middle of merciless turbulence that almost sank it. Blaze Bayley, who was still performing simply as Blaze back then, was fighting his way through a personal crisis. That also meant flirting a bit too often with drinks of various alcohol content. Even before work on “Blood And Belief” began, the original Blaze lineup had started to fall apart. By the time the album came out in 2004, Blaze Bayley was left completely alone on deck, and hardly anyone believed the guy would get back on his feet. To top it off, the label SPV/Steamhammer Records left him hanging too, as they didn’t want to extend the singer’s contract.
But the musician found inspiration when the Polish label Metal Mind Productions lured him out of hiding and asked whether he’d be up for recording a DVD at one of his shows in Poland. Blaze had no band at that point. That gave him the push to get “moving” again, and from there things started going his way. He gathered new collaborators and locked himself in the studio once more. For the first time, Blaze wasn’t the only writer, as the other members chipped in with their own ideas and co-created the music for the new album. Considering that Blaze Bayley is the only “survivor,” it made sense to rename the band from Blaze to Blaze Bayley. Not only does that make perfect sense given all the quirks rolled up in this musician’s body of work, the idea was spot-on also because “The Man Who Would Not Die” marks a turning point in his career. It’s a kind of rebirth.
“The Man Who Would Not Die” is also a different kind of album. The sound doesn’t lean as heavily on the depressive groove volume of its predecessor. Blaze has definitely kept that rich, spacious sound in plain sight on the new record. Compared to the previous album, the songs are generally faster. The production has become compact and sounds alive, as if a band were playing its live set with Blaze right there in the studio. The sound doesn’t hide the fact, or the feeling, that a real band is standing behind the singer again, breathing with him at full swing.
Blaze sticks with the classic heavy metal model inherited from the N.W.O.B.H.M. days and his former employers Iron Maiden, but he’s recast it in the modern garb of an excellent live production. Given the emotional release that Blaze, who was always known for tackling things with passion, makes no attempt to hide, this kind of music demands an aggressive production too. Anger, pain, suffering and revenge come to life with ease against a superbly built wall of massive sound, constructed from intense guitar riffing. In contrast, there’s a dynamic rhythm section woven in. The double bass drum pedal has never been used this intensely. The opening title track already serves up exactly that (the chorus of The Man Who Would Not Die). The riffing stays soaked in unison melodies, and we certainly can’t skip the harmonies in thirds. The middle instrumental sections are often split up and made of several interlacing lead motifs, through which the fiery (and sometimes multi-part) solos of both guitarists pass.
Looking at the whole thing, it’s interesting that Bruce Dickinson played with similar tricks, in his own way, back when he was outside Iron Maiden. After firing blanks through his first three solo studio releases, he took the basic framework for songwriting from Maiden and dressed it up in modern sonic approaches and studio sound-shaping techniques. Well, Blaze goes about it more consistently. Across all his albums.
It’s also interesting that Blaze Bayley kept the energy of the two Maiden albums he sang on and carried it over to his own records so effectively that, especially thanks to Blaze’s distinctive vocal approach and the creation of a particularly gloomy atmosphere, they have at least as much in common with “The X Factor” and “Virtual XI” as any Maiden album without Blaze on vocals. If not more. But that’s a topic for in-depth debate another time. The song At The End Of The Day opens with a gentle nod to the Maiden song 2 A.M.
Blackmailer is fast too, and its riff doesn’t hide some typical thrash metal ingredients. The juicy, live production underlines that feeling even more. The song is dark to the bone, helped along by the semitone construction of the chosen notes in the lead motif. In the middle section the trademark arena chants with “oh-oh-i” return, and where the inspiration comes from hardly needs saying. Then there’s the unrivaled wrecking ball Samurai, which will knock you flat, and onward to Robot. Anthemic choruses combined with aggressive riffing and sprinkled with a pinch of the required melody. A craft that Blaze Bayley and co. have under their skin.
A few songs are inspired by historical figures and fantasy. Samurai, for instance, draws the ideas for its verses from the film Gladiator. The song While You Were Gone is dedicated to Blaze Bayley’s wife Debbie, the band’s manager at the time. It was written before her tragic death, though. I should mention that “The Man Who Would Not Die” came out right when Debbie suffered a stroke. She stayed in a coma until 09/27/2008, when, after three unsuccessful operations, she finally lost the battle.
One of the best songs on the album is also the longest. Smile Back At Death is full of dizzying shifts in mood. Inspired and deeply felt lead motifs, cleverly combined, carry it from the first second to the last. What grabs your attention most is the effective combination of fast picking in the riff, backed by a ferocious double bass drum barrage, with a melancholic guitar ornament winding over it. We get something similar a bit later on the album in A Crack In The System, but the feel is special. Aggressive riffing, backed by toxic drum torpedoing, is wrapped in a thick, modern production and, with its aggression, almost reaches the feel of Nevermore’s production. Similar aggression rages through the verse of the closing Serpent Hearted Man. Let’s stay with the thrash elements of the album for a bit. We’ve got the crazy Robot, and I won’t miss by much if I draw parallels between its combination of thrash-style riff aggression and melody and the work of the Teutonic thrash metallers from Germany, Paradox.
Blaze Bayley has improved his singing even further on this album. He delivers his verses with even more confidence and conviction, and commands with authority the otherwise tremendously lively playing of the rest of the band, who really hit the jackpot for this musician’s reincarnation. Even though the regenerated band is very young, sometimes it feels like the members read each other’s minds, they pick up on each other so well. And mind you, that’s a feeling given by (just) the studio recording. So there’s no need to think long about whether catching a Blaze Bayley show is a must for any true metal maniac. One of the most penetratingly seductive choruses, the kind you can sing along to without any trouble, is found in Voices In My Head, and Waiting For My Life To Begin is right behind it, graced with especially vivid contrasts in its rhythm combinations.
All the songs carry a degree of confidence that makes it impossible to conclude that any of them is a “filler” stealing the listener’s time. They’re simply very good and excellent songs .Another Iron Maiden-inherited majority, dressed in the attributes of the modern. Anthemic, singable stuff wrapped in the required dose of hellish liveliness and smartly blended with punch into a cohesive steamroller that pulls the best out of the realm of heavy metal. Four years of a “break” brought a ton of freshness and creative hunger, and with it Blaze Bayley not only found himself again but delivered, out of his four studio albums, the best record of his career.
Lineup
Blaze Bayley – vocals
Nick Bermudez – guitar
Jay Walsh – guitar
David Bermudez – bass
Lawrence “Larry” Paterson – drums
Production
Blaze Bayley band
Track list
1. The Man Who Would Not Die
2. Blackmailer
3. Smile Back At Death
4. While You Were Gone
5. Samurai
6. A Crack In The System
7. Robot
8. At The End Of The Day
9. Waiting For My Life To Begin
10. Voices From The Past
11. The Truth Is One
12. Serpent Hearted Man
