IRON MAIDEN — Fear Of The Dark (review)

IRON MAIDEN — Fear Of The Dark album cover Album · 1992 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
adg211288
Fear of the Dark is the ninth studio release from UK heavy metal band Iron Maiden. The album is perhaps most noteworthy amongst the legendary band’s releases for its iconic title track, and for being the final studio release of singer Bruce Dickinson’s first tenure with the band.

Despite the title track though, which is easily one of Iron Maiden’s finest songs, the actual album sees Bruce Dickinson bowing out when the band is at one of their lowest points. After the heavily progressive album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son Maiden went back to basics with No Prayer for the Dying, an album which lacked some aspects of the classic Iron Maiden records, but it did have a lot of decent hard rocking tracks, which to my ears made it a solid album in its own right. Enter Fear of the Dark though and things have turned to a mostly mediocre affair. Aside from the title track the only really brilliant track here is Afraid to Shoot Strangers, a song that oddly seemed to suit Dickinson’s successor Blaze Bayley better than it did him. Iron Maiden however hasn’t ever produced a really awful record, so as a whole Fear of the Dark still hits the above average mark, and a few more points are coaxed out of me for the two standouts, but otherwise this is probably Iron Maiden’s second weakest album, the only weaker one being 1998’s Virtual XI. Be Quick of Be Dead is a decent enough rocking track, but otherwise the album leaves much to be desired of an Iron Maiden release.

In a way, Fear of the Dark has the Iron Maiden elements that No Prayer for the Dying lacked, and likewise No Prayer for the Dying has the elements that Fear of the Dark lacks. Put the best of both together and you could potentially have an album to rival the real classics such as Powerslave, but we’re left with two inferior records in the end. Of course any true Iron Maiden fan should still have these in their collection, but for more casual fans of the band Fear of the Dark shouldn’t be on your priority list.

The problem with this one is really that only those select few songs already mentioned by name in this review really scream ‘Iron Maiden classic!’ at you. There are actually several half decent tracks such as From Here to Eternity, Chains of Misery and Wasting Love included as well, but at the end of the day, Fear of the Dark just fails to stand up to most of the other albums in what is a highly strong and consistent discography. This is still far from being a really awful album, but Iron Maiden disappoints me with this one.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scored at 6.5/10)
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