IRON MAIDEN — Dance Of Death (review)

IRON MAIDEN — Dance Of Death album cover

Album · 2003 · Heavy Metal

5/5 · 2015-07-10
adg211288

Dance of Death (2003) is the thirteenth full-length studio album by UK heavy metal act Iron Maiden. The follow-up to Brave New World (2000) is the second release since the return of Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith to the Iron Maiden family and the extension of the band’s line-up to a six piece, three guitarist setup. Brave New World was both a sort of reunion album for Iron Maiden but is also widely held as a return to form after the Blaze Bayley era. Many fans regard it to the same or almost to the level of (and in some cases, better) than the releases from Iron Maiden’s classic period. It’s certainly an album worthy of such high esteem in my opinion too.

Dance of Death on the other hand I rarely see getting the same sort of attention from Iron Maiden fans. Sure, it doesn’t have the advantage of the whole ‘Bruce and Adrian are back!’ wow factor of Brave New World. Sure, it probably has the worst artwork to ever grace an Iron Maiden album cover, but get past that and dig a bit deeper and you find what is, to my ears, one of Iron Maiden’s best releases. As good as the previous album was it’s a real shame that Dance of Death seems to get so overlooked. It shows off both classic sounding heavy metal tracks that are as strong as anything they did in the eighties, such as single Rainmaker, as well as the more progressive based material of later years, such as the title track which is one of my very favourite Iron Maiden songs. On this album Iron Maiden also try some different stuff, the closing song Journeyman being the most obvious example, in which Iron Maiden swap their electrics for an acoustic approach, to great effect. Another favourite I need to give a special mention to is Paschendale. The band are really on form with their longer songs on this album.

At the end of the day Dance of Death is an album which I can’t keep out of my personal top three for the band. Being such a strong act my actual favourite tends to change at times, but sometimes this one gets the honour, depending on my mood. Most often it’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988) and sometimes it’s Powerslave (1984), both more common choices for Iron Maiden’s best, but to me Dance of Death falls into the same league as those albums. I’m sure anyone who’s as much as fan of Iron Maiden as I am hasn’t missed out on this one, but it definitely shouldn’t be overlooked by others either. It’s probably the only record they’re done where the term ‘underrated’ truly applies. 5 stars.

more than 2 years ago
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powermetal2000 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I don't think any of the post-Blaze albums have been masterpieces, but they have been consistently strong. Not sure what happened with Maiden in the 90's to be honest. Even the two albums with Bruce are below par.

666sharon666 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I personally prefer Brave New World, but only by a narrow margin. I otherwise fully agree with this review.

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

AMoLaD is actually probably my favorite Maiden album tied with Powerslave.

adg211288 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I actually think that the run of post-Blaze albums are almost as consistent as their 80's work, more so in some ways as for me, Brave New World, Dance of Death and AMoLaD are all five star records. The Final Frontier was a small step backwards for me though, but I still think it's an excellent album. I'm hoping The Book of Souls is at least as good.

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Good review, I completely agree that this is really underrated. I find it to be just as great as the rest of Maiden's post-Bayley albums.