UMUR "The Number Of The Beast" is the third full-length studio album by UK heavy metal act Iron Maiden. The album was released through EMI Records in March 1982. It´s the successor to "Killers" from 1981 and features one major lineup change as lead vocalist Paul Di'Anno was fired from Iron Maiden and replaced by Bruce Dickinson (Samson) following several episodes where the rest of the band felt that he didn´t perform well on stage (alledgedly as a result of his cocaine and alcohol abuse). There´s no arguing that changing their lead singer, at this still early stage of their career, was a risky move, but their choice ultimately paid off as "The Number Of The Beast" was a major commercial and artistic success, and a major leap forward in terms of being counted among the premier league heavy metal act on the scene. The cover artwork and the title of the album sparked quite a bit of controversy among religious groups (especially in the USA), but that probably only helped the album become even more commercially successful (the heavy metal counterculture audience, have always stood up for their heroes in situations like that).

9 tracks were recorded during the recording sessions, but only 8 tracks were included on the album because of time restraints on the vinyl media. "Total Eclipse", which was left off would appear as the B-Side to the "Run to the Hills" single. Later reissues of "The Number Of The Beast" includes "Total Eclipse" on the tracklist.

Stylistically Iron Maiden continue the heavy metal style of their previous releases, but with a more epic and at times even progressive touch. Dickinson is a more skilled and diverse vocalist (almost theatrical in his delivery) than Di'Anno and his addition to the lineup has resulted in a more refined, less raw, yet still powerful and energetic heavy metal sound. Main composer/bassist Steve Harris felt increased inspiration by the addition of Dickinson and the possiblities his more versatile voice and singing skills provided when composing the material. A pounding busy bass, powerful drumming, and loads of harmony lead guitar themes and blistering melodic guitar work are still the main ingredients of Iron Maiden´s sound, but the diversity and progressive rock influences of tracks like "22 Acacia Avenue" and especially "Hallowed Be Thy Name" make "The Number Of The Beast" a much more varied listen than the two preceding album releases (although those albums also featured their fair share of intriguing moments and progressive rock influences).

The above mentioned "Hallowed Be Thy Name", which closes the album is arguably among the highlights of "The Number Of The Beast", but tracks like "Run To The Hills" and the title track are also Iron Maiden classics. Deeper cuts like "Children Of The Damned" and "The Prisoner" are also high quality compositions though, but all tracks on the album are well written and effective heavy metal tunes. "Invaders" and "Gangland" are maybe the least memorable tracks on the tracklist but even those two tracks are good quality songs, which have a place on the album. Producer Martin Birch have created a powerful, organic, and detailed sound production, which suits the material well, and upon conclusion "The Number Of The Beast" is through and through a high quality heavy metal release. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

SilentScream213 Like so many Metal bands that faced immense success in the 80’s, Iron Maiden fell victim to turmoil, stumbling and inconsistency in the 90’s. Lineup changes mixed with stylistic experimentation and lack of direction lead to one of the most legendary and beloved Metal bands falling to their knees, failing to keep up with trends while also failing to appease their own fanbase. It’s a story shared by many of the best bands from their era.

At the turn of the century, something changed in Metal. It seemed like older bands realized they don’t need to pretend anymore; they don’t need to chase trends or change styles to appease new crowds. They just need to be themselves and do what they do best. And Maiden were one of the very first bands to realize this, wasting no time in getting Bruce back, returning to their classic 80’s style, and dropping one of the very finest Heavy Metal albums in the first year of the new century.

Brave New World is an exceedingly epic affair with 3 tracks well over the 8-minute mark. And yet, it never overstays its welcome, never feels overlong. How do they manage this? Quite plainly, every minute of every song here is full of carefully crated instrumentation, with wonderful guitar lines weaving between rich and interesting rhythm lines, the only breaks in dense instrumentation being when Bruce’s voice is given center stage to belt out fantastic choruses. Most of the songs here have multiple passages, taking elements from their more Progressive era, but the instrumentation itself is not overly complex or technical; rather, the songs are progressive in that they take you on journeys through different scenes and landscapes, again maintaining a constant interest factor despite the long track lengths.

I have to give some credit to the previous effort, Virtual XI. Of course I have already claimed I find it to be quite an underrated piece on its own, but I think this album puts it into even greater context. Virtual XI was the band’s return to their pure Prog-tinged Heavy Metal after the inconsistency of the other 90’s records. For some reason, Iron Maiden seemed like they forgot how to properly write long songs or something on Virtual XI, but it was very clearly the first step in getting back to who they really were. Brave New World here was them re-finding themselves fully, in all their glory. And of course, a part of that success is the return of Bruce, who is just an absolute powerhouse of a vocalist, both in ability and in his skill of crafting fantastic vocal melodies. A magnificent return to form for the band.

martindavey87 Iron Maiden’s eighth studio album, 1990’s ‘No Prayer For the Dying’, takes the band into the 90’s scratching and clawing against shifting trends and fashions. Following on from what is arguably one of their most popular releases, ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’, the band step away from dabbling in prog territory, and go back to more standard heavy metal. Yeah, the early 90’s weren’t great for metal bands, but Maiden sure weren’t going down without a fight!

It should be noted that by this point, vocalist Bruce Dickinson was not enjoying Maiden as much as he use to, and guitarist Adrian Smith had left the band prior to this, to be replaced by Janick Gers. I’m not really sure how much bearing this has on the writing though, as, personnel issues aside, this is still a very typical Iron Maiden album, and fans of the band will know what to expect.

The production and song-writing is pretty much the same as before. The guitar playing is fantastic as always, and Steve Harris’ formidable galloping style gives the album an almost palpable energy. However, having gone back to their more traditional metal sound, the songs themselves are of varying quality. While there are some absolutely fantastic tracks, there’s a fair few filler ones too.

But the good tracks? Damn, these are excellent! ‘Holy Smoke’, ‘No Prayer For the Dying’, album closer ‘Mother Russia’ and arguably one of the bands best tracks, with an exceptional vocal performance by Dickinson, ‘Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter’, are all reasons why, despite Maiden’s (and metals) waning popularity at the time, this is still a solid album, and a worthy addition to any collection.

martindavey87 ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’, the seventh studio album by metal legends Iron Maiden, has been on my playlist for well over a year by now. Not sure what to score it, it’s been an album I’ve constantly come back to over and over. It’s good. Sometimes it’s really good. But sometimes it’s regarded as one of Iron Maiden’s best releases, and I think that’s where it hasn’t quite met my expectations.

It’s famously referred to as the album where Maiden went more progressive and experimental, not only in song structure but by the use of keyboards. But for me, I don’t know. I just can’t get into this as easily as I could ‘Powerslave’ or ‘Somewhere in Time’. The commonly referenced keyboards are really nothing more than some backing chords over the guitar harmonies.

Regardless of that however, the musicianship is still of a high standard, and as always, praise goes to Bruce Dickinson’s soaring vocals. Despite my thoughts on the album as a whole, there are still some bangers here. In particular, ‘Infinite Dreams’, ‘The Clairvoyant’, ‘The Evil That Men Do’ and closing track ‘Only the Good Die Young’ are all classic Maiden tracks.

And at barely 45 minutes in length, it’s an easy enough album to listen to in one sitting. It’s just really not the album I’d choose to listen to in the first place. Sorry Maiden fans. I love the band, and I DO like this album, just not as much as I feel I’m supposed to.

SilentScream213 Under 3-minute tracks have been completely absent from Iron Maiden’s discography since the sophomore Killers, and never appeared again henceforth, but this album opens with one in “Futureal” and makes me think the band should have done a lot more like this. The song is full of energy, great guitarwork, and every second is filled with that classic Maiden sound, albeit on a bit of a speed rush. The following song, at almost 10 minutes, is the polar opposite; there aren’t enough good ideas there to fill 3 minutes, nevermind 10. The lack of speed and repetitive vocal lines only make this more noticeable. “Don’t you think I could save you” repeated about 96 times in a row really grates on you.

Virtual XI is a very interesting Iron Maiden album, in that it does some things perfectly and in other areas it falls completely flat. The album brought back keyboards and Iron Maiden’s signature epic sound, and by all means, sounds closer to their peak 80’s material than just about anything they’d done since. The problem is, there is something wrong with most of these compositions. Take a one-minute snapshot of any song here, and it sounds like classic Maiden, like it could be dropped into any of their 80’s material and fit right at home. But the songs as a whole, often suffer from being bloated, repetitive, or simply not going anywhere over their long runtime. Everything sounds a bit stale.

Now of course, some songs avoid this. Aforementioned opener is a fantastic track, and “Don’t Look to the Eyes of a Stranger” is an example of the band killing the more progressive, lengthy song format. The return of keys really adds a nice layer whenever they show up. The drumming is also pretty good across this album, but especially in the more energetic tracks.

Lastly, we’ve got to talk about the vocals. Blaze Bayley replaced Bruce on the prior album, and since that album was in quite a different style, the new vocals didn’t really stand out since everything else sounded a bit different too. Here, the songs all go back to the band’s older style… but missing Bruce. Blaze is a fine singer, but his range is far, far more limited than Bruce’s. These songs needed Bruce’s higher, more powerful range to achieve true hooks for the choruses and verses. Blaze unfortunately is passable and nothing more, with very few vocal parts here delivering anything too memorable or catchy.

With all of that being said, I find this album profoundly underrated. It has issues, sure, but it still sounds a lot like the band’s peak material, so if you love that, I really can’t grasp at how you couldn’t at least like this. I feel part of it is just the unfair comparisons. It’s basically just sub-par classic Iron Maiden, but even that should be enough to warrant pretty high marks from most people considering the quality of the band. Go into it with an open mind and I think you will be rewarded.

martindavey87 ‘Visions of the Beast’ is a pretty extensive compilation of videos by British heavy metal icons Iron Maiden. Featuring over 30 music videos, as well as alternative, animated versions, and a number of interesting extras, there’s plenty of material here for fans to sink their teeth into.

Of course, the problem with such DVD’s is that they become outdated, with pretty much all of the material here being available on YouTube. But there’s no denying the quality of the music. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s Iron Maiden! One of the greatest metal bands of all time.

Featuring some classic metal anthems, such as ‘Run to the Hills’, ‘Aces High’, ‘The Trooper’, ‘Fear of the Dark’, ‘The Number of the Beast’, ‘Can I Play With Madness’, and countless others, despite being outdated, this is no-doubt a worthy addition to the collection.

siLLy puPPy Universally cited as one of the absolute best live albums of all time, LIVE AFTER DEATH is the first live album / video release of IRON MAIDEN’s classic early Bruce Dickinson years and was recorded during their “World Slavery Tour.” Despite lasting a whopping 331 days, this double LP album only took two venues as their source for representing their electric live performances. The first 13 tracks were recorded at the Long Beach Arena in California, USA and the remaining five tracks were taken from a night at Hammersmith Odeon in London. While LIVE AFTER DEATH was released both as audio LP and video VHS in 1985, the two aren’t exactly identical in content. The audio LP originally contained 18 tracks (one of which is “Intro: Churchill’s Speech”) but the VHS visual experience only had 14 tracks. Unfortunately when LIVE AFTER DEATH was originally released on CD it was too long for a single disc and instead of simply issuing a double disc, EMI unwisely decided to cut the last five tracks which included the Odeon performance, therefore it is highly advisable to obtain the Sanctuary remastered version which was released as a double disc and retains the entire run of one classic song after another.

LIVE AFTER DEATH is the absolute perfect live album. I very rarely put live albums high on my list of favorites because more often than not something or many things prevent them from capturing my attention and worthiness as essential. If it’s not the weak production values then it is the inability of the band to capture the magic that is manufactured in the studio. That is not the case here. IRON MAIDEN was at the pinnacle of their creative prowess at this point and after several outstanding and classic albums to mine for material, they perfectly execute these live performances and offer every little ounce of excitement heard on the studio releases. Bruce Dickinson nails the vocals and the thundering trio of Steve Harris’ bass and the guitar synergy of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith accompanied by Nikko McBrain’s stellar drumming style doesn’t get any better. While most of the tracks are performed rather faithfully to their studio versions, there is plenty of live improvisation taking places as well. Standout moments include Bruce’s attempt to get audience participation on “Running Free” and another great difference can be heard on “Revelations” where the tempo is upped and Bruce changes the vocal phrasing to make the track sound different and refreshed.

The video release offers all the theatrical visuals of the tour. The “Powerslave” album was based on ancient Egypt and likewise the stage was Egyptified to the max with sarcophagi, hieroglyphs and a mummified Eddie embellished with ridiculous amounts of pyrotechnics. The tour was a smashing success and this release whether it be audio or video is the perfect testimony to the genius that went into every single detail. The sound and mixing is perfect as well as Martin Birch found the perfect balance of every cast member and delivered one of the most satisfying production jobs for a live release that i have ever heard. In the visual department Jim Yukich perfectly captured two nights in Long Beach showing a great band doing great things at the peak of their game. Another piece of perfection with this one is the brilliant cover art of Derek Riggs surpassing previous album themes of Eddie as the mascot by incorporating those themes of previous albums covers and then putting it all on steroids. The spread of the album is breathtaking in content and color with the boldness of the yellows and blues. Every aspect of talent on board with this release guarantees to wake the dead. I cannot find one negative thing to say about it. It is true that Bruce doesn’t hit every note exactly as on the studio version every single time but when he doesn’t he offers interesting new ways of interpreting the classics. This is simply one of the most perfect live releases i have ever encountered and even MAIDEN themselves haven’t even come close to achieving similar results. Masterpiece.

AtomicCrimsonRush I enjoyed this rockumentary on the Irons thoroughly because it did not try to emulate the plethora of other rockumentaries we have all seen that focus on the infighting of stage crews and band members encountering one disaster after another (Metallica, Anvil) and then at the end they all make up and play their last song together. The Spinal Tappiness of such docos is worn out now. This doco on Maiden does the opposite, very little goes wrong and the band are always in high spirits, having fun and getting on. Now they have grown up, even their families go on the road with them. They commend each other in interviews as essential to the band and all have positive things to say as to the role of each member. They like to tease the air hostesses with annoying songs to the tune of Go West, and they play tricks on each other. They reference Monty Python and other British icons. They always have time for the fans, rabid for an autograph. The music is as good as ever and they are one of the bands who actually bother to visit cities or towns that are rarely visited by other massive groups. The fans are so grateful we see them pour out adoration and even tears for their beloved Irons. One cries his soul out when getting a drumstick during a show. It is a very moving scene, he has obviously been touched by the experience.

The doco is a powerful look at how to stay together as a band, they do not drink and do drugs liberally, instead take their music seriously and give everything to the fans and into the albums. They always seem upbeat in their approach to life, and I was quite taken aback by the optimism of all concerned and it was refreshing. Being in a band and making millions should be an experience to savour, not be burdened with. The crew seem to love their work and do not take it for granted. There are none of the obligatory shots of semi naked girls or demonised shots of angry band members. Instead the band are more role models, though they know how to swear as much as the fans do. The performances are snippets of their greatest tunes, played in various venues, such as my beloved all time favourite Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. To see Dickinson piloting the Ed Force One plane is surreal and it follows a map and we are on the journey. We are also treated to a lot of info about piloting, and it is quite astonishing to see how accomplished a pilot Dicko has become. Because of his skills, the band are able to fly quickly to their destinations with all their equipment on the same plane, and this is groundbreaking.

This is the best doco I have seen on Iron Maiden. The bonus disc consists of full versions of all the songs featured in the film. A must for fans of the monsters of metal.