Search - Iron Maiden :: The Number Of The Beast

One of the greatest rock albums of all time in an appallingl

Pedro Corbett | Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL | 06/28/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

""The Number Of The Beast" is an absolute classic, a landmark album in music/rock/metal history. And this reissue is an absolute disaster, with the classic cover printed in wrong colors, and the audio victimized by the infamous "loudness war" (Google the expression if you don't know what it means), with the music having been turned into one big mass of distorted noise. I did a full audio analysis of the whole album and just can't understand how the band's label could have let this precious material fall into the hands of inept audio engineers capable of producing something this amateurish.



Add to that the inclusion of track "Total Eclipse" - which was not part of the original vinyl or even the first CD releases - between tracks "Gangland" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name", something that completely breaks the perfect continuity of the album. That track only started to appear in the 1995 reissues and in a separate bonus disc.



I wonder if the band had any say in these "enhanced" releases. Avoid this thing and buy an older, non-enhanced and non-remastered CD edition of the album if you want to hear how this masterpiece is really supposed to sound. Shame on EMI for releasing this insult to the band and their fans."

Bad, bad, bad remaster

Marcellus B. Lima | Brazil | 05/15/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The remastering for this CD is simply horrible. The sound is totally distorted. If you have access to the vynil or even the original CD you'll know what I mean. Otherwise, this CD should deserve five stars. But it is so mangled I can hardly listen to it, unless in a low volume (so it won't distort so much)."