Iron Maiden-A matter of life and death, 2006

If you are a great band then there tend to be higher expectations. Is that fair? Maybe not, but that's the way we fans can be. Maiden were the best metal band of the 80's with every album being great or almost great. Yet in the 1990's they stumbled as No prayer for the dying just seemed like the band was lost or wore out. Fear of the dark in 1992 was better, but still had several filler tracks and seemed a bit soft at times. Then Bruce left and we got two albums with Blaze Bayley at the helm. These albums just seemed watered down and way off track. Then finally Bruce and Adrian returned and we got Brave new world in 2000. Okay, it was good although not great yet we were just glad they were heading in the right direction. In 2003 they finally got close to being great again with Dance of death. Now here we are three years later with a new album, so what did we get? Well, for my money I got everything I wanted and more. The first thing almost every reviewer talked about first with this album is the length of the songs. Yes, six of the ten tracks are over seven minutes in length. However, they don't seem that long because it's not how long a song is as much as what the band does during the time. Maiden manage to do so much on this album yet make it seem effortless. Too many older bands either repeat their past or try too hard to to reinvent themselves. Iron Maiden have taken the sound they established in the 80's, but built upon it and forged a new direction. We still get similar churning bass lines, the layered guitars (yes, three of them, Nicko's ever changing drum beats and quite honestly Bruce Dickinson sounds more amazing here than he has in say the last 15 years. We get all that yet somehow the band's approach to their songs is a little different. There is much more of a build-up in each song yet it's done in a seamless fashion. To me the tracks here are more emotionally charged than normal. I got chills up my spine during half the tracks to be honest with you. Almost every song starts out very simple and builds up to a boil. They truly are masters at knowing how and when to punctuate parts of songs to get the most from them. At this point in their career, I imagine these guys didn't have problems coming up with enough material, but instead they probably had to narrow down what to use. It was an album that took a few listens for me to really determine what I thought. That's mainly just because there was so much go on during this album. My final word is that I think it is another amazing chapter in Maiden's legacy and maybe their fifth or sixth best album. My only real complaint is that I had to wait three years for it to come out. Here's hoping the next one is out in two years!