Originally Posted by
binnie
From the vaults: Iron Maiden - Killers (1981)
What a difference a singer makes. You cannot help but wonder - for all the stratospheric heights (sonically and commerically) which Maiden achieved with Bruce Dickinson's air-raid siren of a voice at the helm - what this band might have gone on to produce with Di'anno's pit-bull approach to singing. They were a rawer, less consciously crafted, and more spontaneous band in their orignial conception. After the left-hook out of nowhere at the height of punk which was their debut, 'Killers' - whilst often having the reputation of featuing the weaker set of Di'anno-era songs - took things up a level in terms of intensity.
The instrumental gallop of opener 'The Ides of March' gives way to 'Wrathchild' and THAT bassline. This is Maiden at their most aggressive, most elemental, and dinosaur heavy. 31 years on, you hear the core ingredients of heavy metal: duel guitars, spasming time-changes and multiple riffs wrapped into one composition. The title-track offers up more piss 'n' vinegar, with a melody which almost trips over itself acting as a perfect foil for the gruesome subject matter. But it's the deep-cuts which, erm,.......kill. 'Drifter' is frantic and possessed of an almost punk bite: a beautiful melodic guitar lines gives way to some serious twin guitar meltdown in the middle section as the song explodes. This is an epic squeezed into 5 minutes, and the sound of a band which has been hewn and bred on the road. 'Innocent Life' - a chronically neglected epic - is equally explosive, and the sound of a band hugely at ease with itself. That woud be remarkable of any softmore record - but for one that sounded like this in the punk/new-wave era, it speaks of a remarkable sense of self.
Is it perfect? Far from it. The '70s hard rock of 'Another Life' feels curiously out of place - more UFO than up the irons! And at times, Di'anno's intensity is his undoing. For all the switchblade riffs and piercing melodies of 'Purgatory', the speed of the song means that Paul struggles to add anything effective with the vocals, a problem which mars his performance on the speedier moments of 'Murders in the Rue Morgue'. On the latter - a sign of the grandeur they would later achieve - you sense the band and its singer pulling in two different directions.
But, for all of these imperfections, 'Killers' remains my favourite Maiden album. That, I think, is probably because it's not trying to be perfect - it is, rather the sound of a band as a gang, a ferral pack of youths on killing mode. This was a band that made music which was as much about feel, character and venom as it was songs, structures and melodrama. Dickinson allowed Harris to reach his ambitions by bringing range - but for all the grandeur of 'Powerslave' or 'Seventh Son...', for all the epic soundscapes of 'Piece of Mind' and pure evil of 'Number...' Maiden would never sound as vital - or as viscious - as they did here.