Iron Maiden's recent releases have proven controversial among fans. Virtually everyone considers at least one record from the last ten years -- Brave New World, Dance of Death, or A Matter of Life and Death -- to be truly great, right up there with the albums Maiden released in their prime. But there's a lot of disagreement as to which one(s) that is. (The correct answer is Brave New World.*)The Final Frontier, the band's latest effort, is sure to provoke a similar reaction. One man's two cents: This is a solid Maiden record, and longtime fans should pick it up; newcomers, however, shouldn't bother with it until they've worked their way through the band's true classics.
Like its predecessors, The Final Frontier recreates the early-to-mid-'80s Maiden sound, complete with Bruce Dickinson on lead vocals, galloping rhythms, and lots of clichιd minor chord progressions. The group's three guitarists serve up plenty of memorable riffs and solos, and Dickinson makes some great melodies come alive, even with his noticeably aging pipes.
The standouts? The latter half of "Satellite 15 . . . The Final Frontier" (it's not really clear why the two songs were dumped onto the same track) is catchy and anthemic. "Mother of Mercy" has a great chorus. "Coming Home" is a real old-school guitar song, with some excellent harmonized riffs. "Isle of Avalon" and "When the Wild Wind Blows" are as epic as their titles and nine-minutes-plus lengths would suggest. "The Talisman" features some touching classical guitar before going electric.
A few things, however, keep the record from the top tier of Maiden releases. One is that it's all been done before -- whereas Killers captured the band's essence with Paul Di'Anno, Number of the Beast introduced Dickinson, and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son pushed the sound in a progressive direction, the band has been comfortable retreading ground since Dickinson returned. (The group's notorious failures of experimentation in the '90s probably scared them off.) Two, some of the songs are indulgently long. And three, some tracks here are, if not filler, than something very close to it -- "El Dorado" and "The Alchemist," for example, are paint-by-numbers Iron Maiden songs.
So, The Final Frontier isn't a must-have Maiden record. But it's certainly a should-buy, at least for the band's legions of die-hard fans.
-- Robert VerBruggen is an associate editor at National Review. You can follow his writing at http://www.google.com/profiles/robertv4311.
[* Actually, the answer is A Matter of Life and Death - ed]
