IRON MAIDEN — Fear Of The Dark (review)

IRON MAIDEN — Fear Of The Dark album cover

Album · 1992 · Heavy Metal

4.5/5 · 2010-09-27
friso

Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark (1992)

First of all, the album's arranged beautifully. Iron Maiden has a sound only featered on FOTD. Less epic then other albums, more into the solid rock song thing of the eighties. This may sound a bit dissapointing, but wait... it's still Iron Maiden! They made a lot of great songs for this album. They did succeed in making total new atmospheres, contrary to those of records Iron Maiden made before this one.

Be quick or be dead is the heavy uptemp starter for this record. Heavey, rough.. One of the heaveyest sounding songs of Iron Maiden's long career. But anyway, a great opening thriller. From here to eternity is a storytelling song with an poprock influence. This is a weak point of the song, but still I nice song that has an Iron Maiden feel and muscianship.

Afraid to shoot strangers is an highlight of this album, it's an true masterpiece. A long opening part with atmospheric feel played by soft guitars and Bruce's great vocals. The big explosiong of the symphonic/heavey rock guitar solo's part makes this song one of the finests of Maiden career. Great theme's played by double guitars scaffold into a great melodic piece. It truly feels powerfull.

Fear is the key is a bid of a moodcrasher... it's slow and very moody. Still is has some nice parts and might just turn out to be an aquired taste. Childhood's end a beatifull epicfeeling song with nice drums (they almost sound a bit african). The chorus is very atractive here. Great atsmopsheres!

Wasting Love is again a moody song wich begins to work when you listen to it more frequently. It's again a daring song for Iron Maiden, it has an strange mood.

The Fugative is a great hard rocker with lots of emotional guitar parts. The rytmic parts are very interesting here. After the heavy beginning suddenly a smooth guitar part arises making you believe Bruce's lyrics (on a cold oktober morney...). Those lyrics are great by the way, I realy feel the connection between the words and the music.

Chains of Misery is a kind of playfull song. I like the opening riff. Kind of strange are the football team like choir sounds in the chorus. Still a nice song.

The apperition is again a song with a structure and mood/sound that Iron Maiden never had showed before. This I like about this album, it's not so Iron Maiden-like. Judas be my guide is nice mooded song with some speed in it. This was just what the album needed at the time. Good joice!

Weekend Warrior is aging totally unMaiden. The vocals sound kind of bullying, but the lyrics are actually of the protest kind. It's about a hooligans life. The middle solo parts of this song complete the song with some very great melodies. It works!

Well... I'm nog going to discribe how nice the song Fear of the Dark itself is!

Conclusion. Oke, this is a strange album in the Iron Maiden discography. It has a distinctive atmosphere whilst featuring both art rock and long-hare-street-type metal. The song-writing is very strong and the guitar solo's are even better then on most Iron Maiden albums. Some of the classic of this album are real winners. Four and a halve stars for this underrated Maiden album.