IRON MAIDEN — Brave New World (review)

IRON MAIDEN — Brave New World album cover

Album · 2000 · Heavy Metal

4.5/5 · 2010-08-07
Pekka

"This album changed my life." That's big a phrase you hear suspiciously often, but Iron Maiden's Brave New World is one of the two albums I really can say that about. Had I not heard this album and become an Iron Maiden fan, I wouldn't have met other Iron Maiden fans around Finland and through them I wouldn't have met the lady sitting behind me on the couch. So hearing Brave New World in the summer of 2000 really set moving a course of events which has brought me to this place in my life right now.

For that only I would treasure this album, but the music has stayed with me for ten years, not getting old and boring one bit. In the end of the 90s, a dark decade for Maiden, they had done the thing that many thought inevitable, sacked Blaze Bayley and welcomed back the good old Bruce Dickinson. And if that wasn't already enough to get people excited, Adrian Smith's return at the same time should have done it. As they had the good sense of keeping his replacement Janick Gers in the line-up, Maiden now possessed the power of three excellent axe masters, which makes this album a big bowl of tasty soloing.

Adrian Smith comes back with a vengeance as he is the main composer behind their best album opener since Moonchild, The Wicker Man. Ten years ago this was the song that made me a fan, and I still love it today. This is one of the examples that make Nicko McBrain one of the only metal drummers I know who can make a closed hi-hat beat work like a charm. Ghost of the Navigator and the title track are brilliant pieces, both of which feature the added third guitar doubling Bruce Dickinson's melody lines. One could hope for the guitar to create more harmonies with the vocals to enrich the music, but this approach is an improvement as well, making the melodies more powerful. Blood Brothers is an early favourite of mine that has again climbed near the top of my favourite tracks list, an emotional slower song about Steve Harris' father. The beautiful instrumental section is a highlight of the album, but it too could have benefited from the strings creating harmonies with guitars instead of merely doubling them.

The two rockers, The Mercenary and Adrian Smith's other writing contribution, The Fallen Angel are perhaps the weakest tracks of the album, but on an album this strong in its entirety the correct phrase is "least great". The second single Out of the Silent Planet is of faster nature as well, and a wonderful piece despite the repetition in the chorus. The verses are some of the finest moments on the album. My respect for this album dropped a tiny bit when I learned that (along with some of the lyrics in Hallowed be Thy Name) the gloriously grand and wonderful instrumental section in the highlight track The Nomad is very much copied from a Beckett song called Life's Shadow, but still along with Dream of Mirrors it proves that Maiden's ability to craft memorable epics was still as strong as it ever was. The album closer The Thin Line Between Love and Hate features some pretty unusual sounds for Maiden with its multi tracked vocals and a somewhat loose feeling arrangement. A very good track this one as well, but a bit of a downer for a such important place on the album.

This is one of the dearest albums in my life, and as the listens number 245 and 246 last week proved, I still enjoy it just as much as I did in the early days. Just as good as anything they did during the 80s, excluding the two favourites of mine.