Dance of Death
Iron Maiden
| Track |
Score |
| Wildest Dreams |
2 |
4 |
| Rainmaker |
2 |
4 |
| No more lies |
3 |
7 |
| Montsegur |
5 |
6 |
| Dance of Death |
2 |
9 |
| Gates of Tomorrow |
3 |
5 |
| New Frontier |
2 |
5 |
| Paschendale |
7 |
8 |
| Face in the Sand |
4 |
7 |
| Age of Innocence |
3 |
6 |
| Journeyman |
5 |
7 |
| Total: |
38 |
68 |
| 28% |
This album is a bit of a change for me, as I'm generally not a fan of anything recent. However, I have to make an exception for Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden have been around since the late 1970s, if you didn't know, and are still writing music today. Unlike most other bands though, their sound is evolving for the better in my opinion, adding more progressive and virtuoso elements. But is this really a good thing? Let's put it to the test.
After a count-in (you don't hear those very often on record), we're greeted with the drums/guitars of Wildest Dreams. Actually it's fairly simplistic for Maiden. Not that it's a particularly bad thing, but the song seems fairly not earth-shattering. It's also fairly short for Maiden, which is a good thing because it could get boring quickly
This is followed by Rainmaker. Rainmaker starts with a riff which is supposed to sound like rain. This fades into essentially the same riff but simpler, and with singing. Like Wildest Dreams, Rainmaker becomes boring too quickly.
Then we move to a much longer song, No More Lies. The bass guitar is more apparent in this song for sure, as the varied guitarists show of some of their stuff for a minute. We also hear the first of Steve Harris' random keyboard injections. Soon later, the song becomes a lot heavier, and we hear Bruce Dickinson repeating "No more lies". After that it's all really the same.
Montsegur on the other hand, is a reminder of how great double (or even triple) lead guitar can be. It starts heavily, and without much interest. By the time the chorus begins two of the guitars fight it out to take attention over the singer. It might get a bit repetitive towards the end, but it's still a good song
Track five, Dance of Death, is a lyriccentric song, so you can probably guess it isn't going to be that spectacular musically. The intro is slow and not particularly interesting. After an almost painfully long time the song heavies up. Unfortunately when that happens, the song just gets repetitive. And then it just goes back to the beginning of the song musically.
This album wasn't released on vinyl, so I can't make a quip about that. Anyway, track six, the Gates of Tomorrow starts with a fast guitar intro. It works really well when matched with bass, vocals, drums and more guitar, to make a good break from the past few more serious songs. It still goes on for a bit too long, and the chorus becomes a bit too annoying.
The next song is New Frontier, which really has nothing noteworthy about it. Well I suppose it's the only Maiden song to date to credit drummer Nick McBrain.
So then we move to what could possibly be the peak of the album; Paschendale. It starts out with a guitar melody, and a hihat rhythm. In fact, that rhythm is repeated through the song (to good effect). The changes it does have suit the concept of the song very well, like the soft/loud juxtaposition in the beginning. What's its flaw? It goes on too long, and ceases to be fresh too quickly.
Face in the Sand sounds like a reprise of Dance of Death. Of course, it's nowhere near as drawn out. The synthesisers are overused for sure, but the guitar on top sounds good.
The second last song, Age of Innocence, is sort of like every other song on the album, in that as good as it should be, it fails to effectively engage you. I should probably mention that the lyrics seem very bitter, and the singing in places quite odd.
Which leaves Journeyman, which is more than unique amongst Iron Maiden's repertoire. What makes it different? Well every instrument apart from those sneaky keyboards is acoustic. It almost sounds like a sellout, but the acoustic instrumentation was chosen for artistic purposes. It's a much better song than you'd expect, even if it doesn't quite seem like a Maiden song.
As I said in the beginning of this review, the band has been getting technically better with each album. However, the big fault in this reasoning is that technically better does not necessarily mean better overall. And this album shows that well, showing more technical skill, but much less raw energy. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is a bad album, however, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who was new to Iron Maiden. Experienced fans would probably enjoy it though.
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