Iron Maiden (Columbia Records, 2000-05-30)
Line-up: Steve Harris (bass, keyboards); Dave Murray (guitars); Adrian Smith (guitars); Bruce Dickinson (vocals); Nicko McBrain (drums); Janick Gers (guitars)
- The Wicker Man (Smith/Harris/Dickinson)
- Ghost Of The Navigator (Gers/Dickinson/Harris)
- Brave New World (Murray/Harris/Dickinson)
- Blood Brothers (Harris)
- The Mercenary (Gers/Harris)
- Dream Of Mirrors (Gers/Harris)
- The Fallen Angel (Smith/Harris)
- The Nomad (Murray/Harris)
- Out Of The Silent Planet (Gers/Dickinson/Harris)
- The Thin Line Between Love And Hate (Murray/Harris)
"My name is alex and I'm an old-school headbanger. I'm so ancient I remember Savatage and life before Sepultura. Shit, I remember when people slow danced to Scorpions music. Help me!"
The critique
The year was 1991. After the success of Seventh Son and the departure of Adrian Smith, Iron Maiden released Fear of the Dark. It was the dregs. In fact, it sucked so badly that I and many others wrote the band off. They did little to prove me wrong in the next couple of albums. And then, nine years later, they returned with their twelfth studio album, Brave New World. And, while musically there's little truly new about it, it was a shocking revelation.
Frankly, I didn't even listen to it until over a year after its release. As Dickinson put it, "sad, old fuckers getting back together to go and make a few bucks" was what I thought. Looking for sad old fuckers to buy it, I say. Then a copy of this work fell into my hands and lo and behold! Twelve years after their last masterpiece, Maiden were at it again. The "classic" line-up of their glory days plus Janick Gers present what may well be the swan song of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (honestly, I'll be amazed if they can repeat it). I don't think there's been such a musical comeback since Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers in 1984, another album that closed an era the same band had opened.
Am I raving? Mm, I think I am. Let's disregard the accusations of rehashing their heyday's best work. If this is what recycled riffs can do, I say bring 'em on. This is what the public wanted, this is what the band gave them. This is vintage Maiden and those who spent a dozen years listening to their old stuff can rejoice. Sound-wise and in terms of compositions I'd place it closest to Somewhere In Time which I didn't really like but this one has much more history to fall back on.
On a musical level the shadows of the past are deep and the band combine elements from all their previous albums, not only the classics. It's as though they had to do it to prove again that they can stand among the very few great bands that made up a brilliant whole out of units quite remarkable in their own right. It's not totally lacking in originality. They explore and make the best of the rich potential of three first-class guitars in the line-up and neither Dickinson nor Harris are afraid of innovation. The reappearance of Smith and Dickinson as songwriters definitely boosts the album's quality too.
Eddie Lives! (and of course Derek Riggs is there to make sure he does)
The band
Bruce Dickinson makes a surprising comeback from written-off rocker hell. His vocals don't dominate like they used to but are still powerful, moreso than in his solo work, and blend in with the music better than they used to. His technique has improved noticeably.
Steve Harris is God. End of story. He led this band from dank little clubs in England to stadia all over the world, filled them and followed them into decline, only to lead them back in style. His compositions are richer and more classical, he has reached maturity as a lyricist and his playing is, needless to say, the performance of a virtuoso of the rarest kind.
Gers, Smith and Murray are a guitar trio to be feared. It's been over ten years since the world last saw such a guitar... umm, onslaught, as we'd put it "back when." Those three have brought old school guitar metal back from the grave and made it look larger than life. They shine together and individually as befits masters of their chosen art. The guitar arrangements on this album are undeniably some of the best ever put together in a genre that prides itself on guitarwork and, in my opinion, the highlight of the album as a whole.
Nicko McBrain, as always, is a pillar of drumming strength. He once again justifies his name as one of the best rock drummers alive (or dead, as a matter of fact), right next to the likes of Ian Paice and Nick Mason. For the first time a producer has taken proper notice of his demonic single bass pedal and worked to showcase it, making this the best McBrain Experience since Piece of Mind, and probably even better.
Track by track
The Wicker Man starts with an intro that immediately throws you back to Killers and songs like Charlotte the Harlot. This impression soon fades as a much more modern sound takes over and the guitars start showing who's boss on this album with a quality and coherency comparable to the Phantom of the Opera performance on Live After Death. Smith delivers a solo unlike any I've heard before in a Maiden song. This song bears all the marks of another Maiden anthem and live staple. Its chorus is eminently sing-along-able--you can practically hear a throng of 20,000 headbangers in a stadium shouting "your time will come."
Nothing you can contemplate will ever be the same
Every second is a new spark, sets the universe aflame
While the theme of Ghost of the Navigator is very much reminiscent of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and its lyrics, I find it closer to Powerslave. Some prog elements sneak in but the riffs and changes are true Maiden and the intro is a very nicely done acoustic bit. Dickinson's vocals stand out on this track and display a versatility we're not accustomed to.
Where I go I do not know, I only know the place I've been
Dreams they come and go, ever shall be so
Nothing's real until you feel
Who'da thunk it that dying swans and mother love would make it into an Iron Maiden album? The lyrics to Brave New World are so totally gothic it's hard to believe. This is more comparable to their recent albums though Bayley could not have delivered it like Dickinson who steals the show here too before Gers' almost plaintive guitar and Murray's epic style steal it back for the strings.
"Dying swans, twisted wings, you know, the agony, the death. Brave New World doesn't want to see that. It has no use for either the life or the death. All it has use for is the image..." --B.D.
Blood Brothers is the obligatory "long story" that has to be on every album. I think its style is much like that of Infinite Dreams, one of my favourites. This song belongs to Harris all the way and his crunching bass lines add to what's a clearly classical-influenced composition. It's one of those works that reminds you how closely heavy metal is related to classical music. Sad but uplifting music in 3/4 time. Originally dedicated to Harris's recently passed father, in later years the song would become a song of remembrance, brought out in concert to mark events such as the death of Ronnie James Dio or the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
The Mercenary is simply good old blood and guts metal like The Trooper or Sun and Steel. Indeed it would not have been out of place on Piece of Mind. For some reason I keep expecting to hear Rory Gallagher's voice when it begins...
Dream of Mirrors is thematologically closer to Infinite Dreams and resembles it quite a bit. The chorus in this song is one of the best they've ever written and highly catchy. It slowly develops from atmospheric piece into the full-blown epic speed metal that lesser bands have been trying to copy for the last twenty years and fades out again like it started. Particularly impressive is McBrain's footwork in the last third of the track where he matches Harris note for note after accompanying the rest of the song with a light, subtle touch.
I only dream in black and white, I only dream cause I'm alive.
I only dream in black and white, to save me from myself
The Fallen Angel is another old-style, speedy Maiden track in which you recognize the band that created The Number of the Beast. Eschatology,
the unclean and the fate of the divine are some of their favourite themes and this Powerslave-like piece shows it best. Genuine Maiden all
the way with the rhythm section leading the way and the guitars and vocals fighting back.
The Nomad starts out by painting a desert picture with an Arabic rhythm, led by McBrain and followed by Murray with a recurring theme. I find it most comparable to To Tame a Land (apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so) with touches of Rime of the Ancient Mariner if you need another reference, though its unusual motives do set it apart. I don't think it's all about Bedouins... more likely Harris had a historical figure in mind but who that was gets lost. I think this is the only song in which Dickinson isn't quite up to the job but then I can't think of anyone who would be. I'd like to hear Ronnie James Dio try it though. All said, it's a superb piece of symphonic metal.
Out of the Silent Planet is described by Dickinson as being in the vein of Run to the Hills. It paints the same bleak picture that 2 Minutes to Midnight does. Once again the end of the world is nigh with this eschatological gem of alien invasion, death and destruction.
Withered hands, withered bodies begging for salvation
Deserted by the hand of gods of their own creation
Nations cry underneath decaying skies above
You are guilty, the punishment is death for all who live
The Thin Line Between Love And Hate is, again, about life and death, karma and retribution, another one of Harris's pet subjects. Think The
Evil That Men Do theme-wise, though the music is more akin to T-Rex or Judas Priest's flavour of hard rock (or UFO, as Dickinson rightly
claims). The props for this song must be evenly divided between Murray's softly distorted guitar and McBrain's masterful, trance-like inverted beat. Never mind the voices at the end of the track, they're only in your head.
I will hope, my soul will fly, so I will live forever
Heart will die, my soul will fly, and I will live forever
Should I buy it?
Beyond doubt, the answer is yes. It only charted at #7 (UK) but that, as we all know, is no criterion by which to judge a work these days. I was long of the opinion that Maiden had four "classic" albums, now I say they have five (and on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this article, I will state that the album has aged well and my views are unchanged). I didn't think I'd be saying this again, but well... 'kin hell! Up the Irons.
On an other note, unrelated to the album and after reading significance x's writeup below, and seeing that much thought and effort is devoted to comparisons and declarations of one's superiority over the other, I have one thing to point out as regards the comparison between George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's work, and disregarding the fact that both are severely flawed as regards literary technique but nonetheless acknowledging that they were both revolutionary in the concepts they present:
1984 is "more scary" because it's dystopian and paints pictures of oppression, even though some of its key elements are contrived to the extent of exaggeration. The Brave New World of Huxley is more palatable. The net effect may be the same--an ordered society with an official dislike of individuality and a stricter set of behavioural standards than we're used to--but Big Brother (key: impersonal instrument of the System) is perceived as being much more unpleasant by the standards we've been brought up with than the benevolent Mustapha Mond (key: willing servant of the System). All other scenaria excluded and assuming one considers both to be equally undesirable, your choice is between being stabbed and being stabbed in the back with a smile. Which one is scarier depends on one's very personal perception.
While the reality of 1984 may have been a more tangible possibility before the end of the cold war and in the light of numerous regimes that employed (or would like to have employed) its methodology, Brave New World approaches contemporary reality more closely in a "western" republic where ideas and perceptions are imposed by means of manipulation and technology (being fundamental to both) is presented as purely benign when it can just as easily be used for the same purposes as Orwell's.
What you might want to think of as "scary" is that reality in an information-driven technological society is closer to a combination of the fundamental ideas behind the two works. The ideas that Huxley presents can be used to promote Orwellian scenaria and vice versa. The dichotomy between Brave New World and 1984 is false.