IRON MAIDEN — Dance Of Death (review)

IRON MAIDEN — Dance Of Death album cover

Album · 2003 · Heavy Metal

3.5/5 · 2010-08-07
Pekka

Hahaha! A really weird and brilliant joke! Please, it is a joke, right? What the...? These are the thoughts of every single Iron Maiden fan from the moment the new album cover was exposed to the moment the album was really released. That embarrassing mess of crooked necks, dislocated arms, shiny plastic bald girls, toy dogs and levitating babies was really the cover to an album by Iron Maiden, a band that has always put so much effort into their visual appearance. This is metal's equivalent to Love Beach in its sheer stupendous awkwardness.

But enough of the wrapping, once that cd hit the player the feelings were soothed. This was the first new Iron Maiden album I heard on the day of the release, and at the time I couldn't get enough of it as I was hitting the peak of my intense fanboy days. But soon I started comparing it to their other releases and saw that there are lots of albums this one can't match, but it's still quite an excellent piece of work.

Iron Maiden have a habit of omitting a certain portion of every album when doing the tour promoting it, and never returning to them afterwards. Montségur is one such song that I'm still waiting for them to play live some day, one of the definite highlights of the album with its heavy riffs, an amusing contrast between a happy chorus melody line and lyrics about a massacre, and a brilliant instrumental section. Other such songs include the first and so far last ever Nicko McBrain writing contribution New Frontier, a clear winner in the competition of Maiden drummers as songwriters which has some of Bruce Dickinson's best singing on this album, Face in the Sand which is mostly notable for being the only Iron Maiden track ever to contain double bass drumming and the very good Gates of Tomorrow, the guitar intro of which is very reminiscent of Lord of the Flies.

They are in no way deserving of such treatment, as they are every bit as good as the opening duo of Wildest Dreams, which despite its good upbeat rocking feel battles with Tail Gunner and Different World for the spot of the least convincing Maiden album opener, and Rainmaker, a fast melodic heavy metal track that for some reason failed to take off properly when played live. The first epic of the album, No More Lies, feels like The Clansman part 2, taking the same aesthetic to good results, but the remaining two epics outshine that one badly. Dance of Death is a masterpiece of slow moody beginning and very catchy folk melodies and Paschendale is a monumental war song with proper heaviness, an effective composition that goes perfectly with the theme of the lyrics, and a great string arrangement in places. And for the first time ever Maiden digs out the acoustic instruments not only for an intro, but an entire song. Journeyman is one of their finest closers ever in its intimate feel.

Far from their best, far from their worst. A respectable album in every sense, if you remember to close your eyes when taking the case out of your cd shelf.