Blaze Bayley - War Within Me

Blaze Bayley – War Within Me

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The kind of metal created by Blaze Bayley in 2021 doesn’t work for me anymore, it just leaves me motionless and sick of the whole scene.

Written by: Dangerzone

ARTIST: Blaze Bayley
ALBUM: War Within Me
LABEL: Blaze Bayley Recordings
SERIAL: TBA
YEAR: 2021

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Flag England

LINEUP: Blaze Bayley – vocals * Christopher Appleton – guitar * Karl Schramm – bass * Martin McNee – drums

TRACK LISTING: 01 War Within Me * 02 303 * 03 Warrior * 04 Pull Yourself Up * 05 Witches Night * 06 18 Flights * 07 The Dream of Alan Turing * 08 The Power of Nikola Tesla * 09 The Unstoppable Stephen Hawking * 10 Every Storm Ends

RATING: Score Of 20%

WEBLINKS: Site Link

Background

As my review writing days become sparser by the year, I’m still somehow drawn to write the odd review that captures my attention – usually for the wrong reasons. As a stalwart of the metal scene since his days with Wolfsbane, Blaze Bayley has led a long career of ups and down. His stint with Iron Maiden led to the serious, brooding Bayley we’ve seen for almost 30 years.

Since his departure from Iron Maiden Bayley has released an endless parade of solo albums, none of which spring to mind immediately. Let’s just say there’s been a ton of them. While browsing Spotify some weeks back I came across this album in a new releases folder. I decided to give it a shot, wondering what old Blaze is up to these days. What resulted is a set of metal so stale, so worn out in sound and execution, that I realized why I gave up on new metal a long time back.

Blaze Bayley Pic 2021

The Songs

This album is the kind of boring power metal I suspected died in 2002 with obscenities like Hammerfall, Gamma Ray or Helloween. It’s the type of metal I could imagine a bunch of guys in their 50’s headbanging to, still wearing their bullet belts and denim vests from 1982.

The title track is fast and has some riffs going on, but melodically it’s flat and uninspired. I probably would have loved this in 1997, but time moves on and Blaze Bayley is probably just happy to still put music out at all. There’s a track called ‘Warrior’ that is a power ballad of sorts, the Maiden inspired guitar work obvious. Bayley sings about being a fighter until the end. Don’t count him out!

There’s a trio of songs called ‘The Dream Of Alan Turing’, ‘The Power Of Nikola Tesla’ and The Unstoppable Stephen Hawking’ that seem to portray Blaze’s obsession with science. It seems more pompous than anything. Is this the same guy who used to be a rebellious hellraiser? I say that every time I review an album with Bayley, but it isn’t any less true than it was in 1995. Blaze ends the album recalling Iron Maiden‘s classic ‘2 a.m’. with the introspective ballad ‘Every Storm Ends’. He’s a survivor you know. Every song will remind you of this fact.

In Summary

I don’t fault Blaze Bayley for keeping his career going, I mean what else is there for him to do? But how does he make any money from these albums? Who buys this stuff? Who still gets excited about it? Maybe that’s just my cynical take, but this kind of metal doesn’t work for me anymore.

I suppose that’s the ‘war within me’ these days. I’m more content to listen to Blaze belting out ‘Killing Machine’ or ‘I Like It Hot’. This album just leaves me motionless and sick of the whole scene.

Video

War Within Me

War Within Me

Warrior
Warrior


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