Balls To Picasso [DVD Audio] - Bruce Dickinson

Advantages: Excellent production for a live album, great atmosphere
Disadvantages: Tracks lose some polish.

...One day, in a South American country called Brazil, in a city called San Paolo, a metal legend turned up and kicked everyone's arse. This album is a record of that happy little tale in audio form. But is it any good. Well, some people like live albums, and some don't. The recording quality is never as good as a studio album, but I like them for the energy and feel of the live show. If you hate live albums in general, avoid. But otherwise, please read on. Basically this album consists largely of material from Chemical Wedding, but has a few songs from Accident of Birth and two from Balls to Picasso. This is actually a good mix, because all the songs are well chosen - Chemical Wedding is the best album ever, and the songs from the other albums are all the best songs from the respective albums. The one disappointment was that Machine... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Interesting Career Change
Disadvantages: Some weak tracks

...So the great Bruce Bruce (as he was so memorably called in his Samson days!) has broken away from Iron Maiden and become a fully-fledged solo artist. Inevitably this release will be compared to Maiden's material, but apart from a couple of tracks it's actually pretty different. The single, "Tears of the Dragon" is probably the most Maideny song here - which is probably why the record company released it - and is in fact something of a classic, perfectly suited to Bruce's distinctive vocal style, while "Gods of War" features a guitar break which could have been lifted from any IM album. Mind you, all this harking back is probably unfair, and the album should be taken as a piece of work in its own right. As such, it is certainly better than Brucie's previous solo effort "Tattooed Millionaire", but not as entertaining as most Maiden... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: More Cohesive Effort
Disadvantages: Too many fillers

...What does the album title mean? Dunno mate. Album cover? Two blokes in suits eyeing each other over a stretch of eater. Significance? Ain't got a scooby pal. Lyrics? Well, they're all printed back to front and I couldn't really be arsed deciphering them. The music? Ah, now you're asking. This is Brucie's third solo album, and moves him well away from the land of Maiden after the transitional stages of "Tattooed Millionaire" and "Balls To Picasso". Track one is "Space Race", which does its best to catch you out with the old quiet-start-so-you-turn-it-up-only-for-it-to-suddenly-burst-into-life trick. The guitars of lead Alex Dickson and bassist Chris Dale are excellent, even overshadowing the superb voice of the man himself, although that reasserts itself on "Back From The Edge". "Inertia" is a contradiction in terms with its undoubted... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful