No Prayer For The Dying
by Iron Maiden

I personally love every song on this album and I don't understand the hate AT ALL. Yes, it's a more stripped back sound. Yes, it came after what's considered one of Maiden's best albums. But No Prayer, is, at it's heart, an underrated masterpiece.

From the chilling Mother Russia to the helping of cheese that is Holy Smoke, there's not a single bad song on this album.

I feel like I'm the only one who recognises how good this album actually is. It saddens me to see all the undeserved hate for this, for the Blaze albums, for Final Frontier, for Dance of Death... and they only get hate because of the mainstream opinions.

I'm proud to have my own opinions, one of them being that No Prayer is a criminally underrated masterpiece.

From Bork TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/06/2011 02:51 | #25844 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I like this album and there are a handful of songs that I'll happily keep playing over and over (Tailgunner, Holy Smoke, Bring Your Daughter, Mother Russia). If anyone shouts 'cheeeeezzzeeee' it is hard to argue though. Just don't do it about any of the albums that came before.

No prayer for the dying, was Iron Maiden's first album of the nineties and first with new guitarist Janick Gers, who replaced Adrian Smith. The album saw Maiden returning to shorter and punchier songs. While not one of their best, there is some good stuff on here, unfortunately, some bad too. Tailgunner, is fine, and first single, holy smoke, is good. Other good stuff includes, run silent,run deep, hooks in you, and, fates warning. Nothing is really terrible until you get to the last two tracks. Bring your daughter, and, mother Russia, are appalling. Why on earth Steve Harris was so desperate to include, bring your daughter, is a mystery. Bruce Dickinson was keeping it for a solo track, but amazingly Harris thought it was good enough for Maiden. All in all, not bad, if you exclude the last two cuts.

I guess the group thought Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was too pompous or that the group had become too serious (though that album is among their best), or they just wanted to try and make something totally different. The point of No Prayer for the Dying was to bring the group back to their original sound. It was also their first album with guitarist Janick Gers, replacing Adrian Smith who had just left the group. Bruce sings with a more raspy voise which is just annoying. The group sounds much less serious than on their predecessor, and though there are some OK songs here ("Tailgunner", "The Assassin", "Bring Your Daughter... To the Slaughter" and "Mother Russia") the rest is absolutely dreadfull. Definitely one of the group's worst.

Definitely not their best album, but also not their worst of the Dickinson Era (looking at you Final Frontier). Has its moments, the first 3 tracks are all really good after 3-4 rotations. Bring your daughter is a live staple and really a solid song, Mother Russia also is really good. The rest is standard, ok till good fillers. Overall a good record if you give it a chance.