But jfc the most annoying thing about "The Angel and the Gambler" is that you can see the bones of a decent song lost somewhere in all the mess. It's not a bad melody, the lyrics are mostly fine; nothing extraordinary, but they're not trash by any stretch. So whyyyyyy they drug out the repetitive chorus for like 5 out of the nearly 10 minutes that the song goes on for is anyone's guess. But this is also the period of time where Steve was producing, so... steve I love you but you had your hand in too many aspects of the band at that time and you absolutely needed some outside perspective and you were just not accepting it.

I also realised they were the only songs on Turbo, Virtual XI and Mob Rules I’ve warmed up to so I made a bigger playlist where I can listen to the whole albums and hope they’re just as cool as Locked In, Futureal and The Mob Rules

Eddie? 🤔

Iron Maiden  -   Futureal

1992, 1995, 1998, 2000. *Blaze Bayley

Minimalism + Iron Maiden - “Virtual XI” + “Virus”

I like Dance of Death better than Fear of the Dark. I think it’s the last good Iron Maiden album. I also love the Blaze Bayley era, even if it’s severely flawed. I particularly love Virtual XI, even the album art.

Melvyn Grant