Album Review: Paul Di'Anno - In Memory Of...
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Scheduled for release on the day before what would have been Paul Di’Anno’s sixty-seventh birthday, In Memory of… is a dozen songs from the big man’s time at Metalville Records, including a couple of never-before-issued-on-physical-media tracks.
Divided into (almost) halves, In Memory of… is made up of five live tunes from Paul himself and a series of songs issued under the Architects of Chaoz name, including a live rendition of Maiden’s Killers from Wacken Open Air in 2015.
The live section of the record is taken from Paul’s album Hell Over Waltrop – Live in Germany 2020 and features three tracks from the 1992 record, Murder One. Impaler kicks things off with some rampant drumming and heavy guitars. Unrelenting and uncompromising, it’s a masterclass in fast and furious metal, delivered by a seasoned craftsman. The Beast Arises continues the band’s hard and heavy metal assault, while the speed metal, Venom-vibes of Marshall Lokjaw evoke plenty of audience interaction.
That’s relative, I suppose, as the final two Waltrop tunes are Running Free and Blitzkrieg Bop, neither of which would need an introduction – though Paul includes a Joey-inspired one-two-three-four – and both play to the Big Man’s punk credentials. You can hear the sheer power of this gig bleeding through your speakers and, while some live albums only hint at the in-concert experience, this is a full-blown pit all of its own.
The other five, previously available, tunes come from Paul’s 2015 Architects of Chaoz album, The League of Shadows and is something of a smorgasbord of styles and ideas. First to arrive is Switched Off (Released) which comes with an atmospheric opening, walking bassline and haunting voices. At seven-minutes it reminds one of Remember Tomorrow’s melancholia, uplifted by a soaring solo, it is both timelessly metal and beautifully fragile, and it is hoped that this release will make it available to a wider audience.
Apache Falls is equally epic in scope, concerned with native Americans through the use of tribal instrumentation, it could be a tune from one of Maiden’s more modern records. Guitars cascade and the extended outro gives way to a dreamlike piano conclusion.
Both Rejected and You’ve Been Kissed by the Wings of the Angel of Death see Paul dipping his toe into the European power metal stylings of a Helloween or Blind Guardian, incorporating gang vocals and rampant gallops, embracing the genre’s bombast and singalong, anthemic choruses.
The final Architects of Chaoz tune is a cover of Deep Purple’s Soldier of Fortune, voiced by David Coverdale on the Stormbringer album and a blueprint for how to wring every drop of emotion out of a song. For all his punk credentials, Paul matches Coverdale with every line of this version, bringing a tear to the eye of al but the most stoney of heart.
The final two songs on In Memory of… are so far unreleased in a physical form. Architects of Chaoz’s encore of Iron Maiden’s Killers from their 2015 Wacken appearance is the sort of high energy performance that will have turbo-charged the German crowd. Paul admits to being nervous about the show, saying so in the most self-deprecating way, endearing him to the gathered masses. It’s not a perfect rendition, but it’s live and it’s true and that’s all that really matters.
The other unreleased song is the galloping, Maiden-like Je Suis Charlie, and deals with the serious subject of the curtailment of free speech. Taking its title from the murder of twelve journalists in
January 2015 at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, resulting in the titular hashtag, it lets us know Paul was a serious songwriter.
His passing in October 2024 came at a time when his star was on the rise once more and, according to his stage chat in Blackpool last August, he was intending to head out in 2025 with a set of his own material.
Sadly, the Fates had other plans for Paul, and called him home instead, leaving us to rediscover the legacy of his music post-Maiden. This release, alongside the previously available Book of the Beast form a fine starting point to begin those investigations.
Be the first to comment