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Mar 25, 2023

Iron Maiden

June 1, 2023J PVicious Viewing (Video Reviews)0 Summer Metal Movie Madness.

June 1, 2023J PVicious Viewing (Video Reviews)0

Summer Metal Movie Madness. After reviewing almost every physical DVD I own I realized there is still a long way to go to review every Metal-themed film out there! As DVD's become more and more obsolete, new, interesting Hard Rock and Metal movies are getting produced on a regular basis but not being pressed onto DVD or Blu-Ray. Many of them are going straight to some sort of streaming service. While this is not my preference, if it comes down to not watching the film or watching it streaming, I’d rather see it. I have spent the last couple of months watching as many streaming Metal movies as possible (and a couple of old-school DVD's for good measure) and will be reviewing several per month for the next several months. Please feel free to enjoy all the reviews in this feature.

In case you are not familiar there is a very long running television documentary series called Classic Albums. It was a BBC / VH1 joint production that was founded in 1997 and is still going, making new episodes as late as 2021. There are 45 episodes (and even a Dutch spin-off series!) and each episode is one hour long on focuses on a single album.

In terms of our purposes here at Metal-Rules it is a generic pop and rock documentary series aimed at your average pop and rock fans. However, over the years the producers decided to do seven albums that qualify as Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. They are (alphabetically by album title) ACE OF SPADES , BRITISH STEEL, HYSTERIA, MACHINE HEAD, METALLICA, THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST and PARANOID.

Here at Metal-Rules we have reviewed the episodes for BRITSH STEEL in 2001, and PARANOID in 2010, I thought I would review the last five episodes that we haven't covered. For the record our very own Celtic Bob did excellent reviews of several other albums in the series (Rush, Queen) in case those are of interest to you.

Originally aired in 2001 this is the 13th in the series. It was a good year with episodes about Metallica and Judas Priest as well. It's kind of fitting that the first Metal episode was about NUMBER OF THE BEAST.

The whole concept is a retrospective look at the making of a classic album. There is no formal interview, just interview clips talking about the band, a bit of history and then a song by song analysis.

In terms of production and presentation this one is pretty low key. It is pretty much talking head interview clips for the duration. There is a bit of archival footage. Other random thoughts…they look so young! Nicko is barely featured because, of course he did not play on that album. Everyone gets interviewed as well as Rod Smallwood and Martin Birch. Birch sits in the studio and dabbles behind the board, emphasizing certain parts and isolating certain tracks. The fine British gentlemen have a depreciating sense of humour and seem to have a fun time reminiscing about the album that was already 17 years old at that point…and Bruce had just rejoined Maiden!

The point of this series is a broad overview. They are designed to introduce albums to a broader audience. Accordingly, there is not much new information for true Maiden fans but it is a nice look back at the record. I was surprised to learn from Derek Riggs that the record company had screwed up the album art! That I did not know.

I don't know how necessary this is, but it was fun to watch and a nostalgic way to kill an hour.