{"id":10256,"date":"2012-09-24T07:00:38","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=10256"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:52:42","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:52:42","slug":"album-review-steve-harris-british-lion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=10256","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Steve Harris – British Lion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Steve Harris \u2013 British Lion<\/strong>
\n Release Date:<\/strong> September 24, 2012
\n Highlights: ?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Legendary Iron Maiden bassist\/songwriter Steve Harris announced a few months back that he would be releasing a long anticipated solo album entitled British Lion. First off, I was definitely not anticipating a solo album from Steve Harris but ok. Steve Harris\u2019 people sent out a press release to promote the upcoming album which boasted things like \u201cgrowling riffage\u201d, \u201cbreathtaking progressive elements\u201d, and \u201cdirge-like muscularity.\u201d Once I got done rolling my eyes at this press release, I decided to put all bias aside and give \u2018arry the benefit of the doubt. I\u2019ve been an Iron Maiden fan\/supporter for over 25 years so I was going into this album with hopes that it would be something really special. After giving this album three listens, I just have one question for Steve Harris. Why?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I knew that this album was going to be far from an Iron Maiden album. I mean, why make an Iron Maiden sounding record when you are in Iron Maiden already? I mean, looking to the past, Bruce Dickinson has an amazing body of solo work that sounds nothing like Iron Maiden so that wasn\u2019t the issue. The standing issue here is that this album just isn\u2019t good. First off, the mix on this album is so ridiculous. Steve Harris\u2019 bass is so damn loud in the mix and up front. Yes Steve, we know this is your band buddy. We know you\u2019re a great bassist but do you have to be so damn loud in the mix?<\/p>\n

Second, there is nothing \u201cclassic\u201d sounding about this album that beckons back to The Who or Deep Purple. For the most part, it sounds like an alternative album. The opening track, \u201cThis Is My God\u201d just completely kills any chance of this album being any good. Musically it\u2019s completely uninspired but what makes things worse is the vocalist. Richard Taylor? Who is this guy? Well, after hearing this guy sing I totally get why he\u2019s unknown. There is absolutely no strength or even the slightest bit of soul to his vocal delivery. Taylor sings with all the enthusiasm of a karaoke singer who just took a handful of ambien and chased it with a pint of beer. On a song like \u201cKarma Killer\u201d, which could have been an amazing song, is just completely pulled down by the weakness of his vocals. \u201cUs Against the World\u201d literally sounds like something that was left on the cutting room floor of an Iron Maiden session. It actually sounds like it could have been a great song but again, the vocals are so weak that it just completely drains it of any life.<\/p>\n

Musically, British Lion does have some pretty promising moments but again, not enough to completely salvage it and make it anything really worth listening. \u201cThe Chosen Ones\u201d reminds me of something that Cheap Trick would\u2019ve done but I couldn\u2019t help but have a literal \u201cLOL\u201d moment when Taylor so unenthusiastically yells \u201cC\u2019mon!\u201d at the opening of the song. One would think that the leader of the single greatest metal band of all time would pick a vocalist who had some gusto, some oomph, and some balls for Christ sake. Then again, as any Iron Maiden fan knows, \u2018arry is a hard head and he\u2019s made some pretty ridiculous decisions in the career of Iron Maiden. Hell, he\u2019s the guy that picked Blaze Bayley of all people to replace Bruce Dickinson so I guess I\u2019m really not all that surprised that he picked this guy to sing on his solo album.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m really curious to see how some of the other Iron Maiden diehards are going to react to this album. As a huge fan of Steve Harris, I just can\u2019t get behind him on this one. It\u2019s not the first time he\u2019s let me down as a fan and it won\u2019t be the last I\u2019m sure. It doesn\u2019t make me love him any less. It just makes him human. I really wanted to like British Lion and I really hoped for something really killer but instead I feel completely let down. It\u2019s kind of like getting a big box for Christmas and while you\u2019re expecting for it to contain a kick ass robot or something, you open it up and it\u2019s a sweater. Steve Harris gave us all one big, ugly Christmas sweater and while I appreciate the sentiment, I will just accept it with a smile, say thank you and tuck it away never to look at it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Harris \u2013 British Lion Release Date: September 24, 2012 Highlights: ? Legendary Iron Maiden bassist\/songwriter Steve Harris announced a few months back that he would be releasing a long anticipated solo album entitled British Lion. First off, I was definitely not anticipating a solo album from Steve Harris but ok. Steve Harris\u2019 people sent out a press release to promote the upcoming album which boasted things like \u201cgrowling riffage\u201d, \u201cbreathtaking progressive elements\u201d, and \u201cdirge-like muscularity.\u201d Once I got done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,277],"tags":[845,195,822],"class_list":["post-10256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-music-news","tag-british-lion","tag-iron-maiden","tag-steve-harris"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19813,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256\/revisions\/19813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}