Maiden United – Across The Seventh Sea

Maiden United is an acoustic project band with musicians from different bands who have joined together to play an all-acoustic tribute to English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. It goes back in 2006, when Joey Bruers (Up The Irons) was asked to perform a tribute at a convention for the Dutch Iron Maiden fan club in Dynamo, Eindhoven. Together with several musicians covered a set of acoustic Iron Maiden songs. Theyplayed a few more shows and then he started to write new acoustic arrangements along with Ruud Jolie (Within Temptation). They began to search for musicians to record these songs and in 2010 their first album was released ‘Mind The Acoustic Pieces’, an all-acoustic reinterpretation of Iron Maiden’s 1983 classic album ‘Piece Of Mind’ which featured Anneke Van Giersbergen on guest vocals, and. The album was supported by the “Pieces Over Europe Tour” and was also re-released as a limited vinyl edition in 2011.

Two years after, Maiden United launch ‘Across The Seventh Sea’, their second release, which was released on CD, limited vinyl edition and as digital download, and contains classic Iron Maiden songs from different albums this time. The album was produced by Ruud Jolie and mixed by Tom Sikkers.

Following the same pattern, songs are played with new arrangements, as in their first album. The album starts with the beginning of ‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’ album lyrics, ‘Seven deadly sins, seven ways to win…’ of ‘Moonchild’ and continues with an acoustic version of ‘Only The Good Die Young’. Other song arrangements from ‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’ album are ‘Infinite Dreams’ and ‘The Evil That Men Do’ featuring Perttu Kivilaakso from Apocalyptica on the amazing cello parts. Vocalist Damien Wilson (Threshold) is very expressional on songs like ‘Prowler’. Drums parts were laid down by Mike Coolen (Within Temptation) and Ruud Jolie (Within Temptation) wrote all the acoustic guitar and mandolin parts and backing vocals.

‘Children Of The Damned’ and ‘22 Acacia Avenue’ from ‘Number Of The Beast’ and ‘Powerslave’ tracks ‘2 Minutes To Midnight’ and ‘Flash Of The Blade’ are also featured in this album. Grand Piano parts were played by Marco Kuypers (Cloudmachine) making the sound of the album warm and delicate. Joey Bruers (Up The Irons) completes the line up and sound of the band, playing all the acoustic bass parts. ‘Wasted Years’ is the last track of the album and closes the same way as it starts, with the second verse of the beginning lyrics of ‘Moonchild’, ‘Seven downward slopes, seven bloodied hopes…’