ARTIST: Iron Maiden
ALBUM TITLE: The Final Frontier
RECORD LABEL: Sony Legacy
RELEASED: August 17

By Mark Leja
Staff Writer, The X Factor

Fifteen studio albums, 100 million albums sold, over 125 songs written. Iron Maiden defined what metal was in the 80′s and still provides a shining example for metalheads to follow. Their latest album, The Final Frontier, is no exception, and overall a good album. After listening to the album a total of three times—no easy feat—it is their longest studio recording.

What better way to start an Iron Maiden album than with “Satellite 15…The Final Frontier”? As a song title, it stands as a very straightforward symbol; they’ve released 15 albums so it’s like the ‘Satellite’ is their album, right? Well here, the metaphor is that Iron Maiden has had such an expansive career, from their eponymous debut album to The Final Frontier, that they’ve really have reached the stars.

That’s really what The Final Frontier is, an overview of their career and the simple fact that while they’re now amongst the stars, they have plenty of room to expand, their creativity is now endless. Iron Maiden has always tried new things and this album definitely shows their experimental side. Using minimal keyboards and utilizing three guitars, the work they created is much more technically oriented and orchestrated than any of their previous albums.

“Satellite 15” kicks off the album with a booming bass line and strange orbital sounding guitars; my first thought was that this was going to be an instrumental, following in line with “Transylvania,” “Ides of March,” “Genghis Khan” and “Losfer Words” from earlier releases. I was digging it, but then the fun was ruined by Bruce Dickinson. It’s not that his vocals were bad—I was hoping for a blast from the past. This first part in general is very well orchestrated; the instruments sound like they were out of this world, Bruce’s voice echoes through the stars, seamless transitions and great depth to the atmosphere of the song. Then there’s a pause…a big ass hard rock riff melts your freakin’ face.  One slam away from cracking open my skull, Bruce comes back!

Then comes the problem…the lyrics, I don’t know why a lot of the 80′s and 90′s metal bands just don’t know how to write lyrics anymore, but in this reviewer’s opinion, these seriously suck. Bruce tries hard to rhyme the passages together with his vocal pitches but come on. “I have no regrets, but I wish I could talk to my family and tell them that last goodbye”. The song has great instruments, what you’d expect from Iron Maiden, but this one’s lyrics are very lacking and hard to get into. So the question is, why wasn’t it left as an instrumental? The world may never know.

Photo from last.fm.

Now at first listen, I thought that “Satellite 15” had two big rock endings, where the band just goes insane. Well that song ends with one, and then the following song, “El Dorado”, begins with another. I thought for a second that the two songs were one and the same, but that’s not the case. After the intro, a very reminiscent gallop starts up. This song is the first single off the album and really sounds like it should be, in comparison to the other songs which average out to 7 minutes apiece. This one also makes a great live performance, I’ve seen it live and man did the crowd get into it. It’s nothing too revolutionary, but still one kick ass song.

At first I was hesitant to “When the Wild Wind Blows”, with melodies that sound like something played at my church, but it’s hard to understand Bruce’s voice. Also, it’s not very metal; this is very much a progressive song, with almost no time to bang your head at all. After listening to it three times, and reading the lyrics, it has become my favorite song. This is a great way to end The Final Frontier and hopefully future releases will continue with this style.

At roughly 76 minutes, it’s their longest studio recording, but I feel as though if they just cut out three of the songs: “The Talisman,” “Starblind” and “The Man Who Would Become King,” this would be one of Maiden’s best albums after Brave New World.  I’d like to think that the band wrote seven songs, then bassist/lead songwriter Steve Harris was like, “Why don’t we make three more and make this our longest album? C’mon it’ll be totally prog!” So they wrote some riffs and pushed out some vocal tracks and just in general it seems like the songs had potential but were rushed.

The Final Frontier is an improvement over Dance of Death, but it’s not as good as A Matter of Life and Death. However, with recent trends in the old metal bands it’s good to hear at least one band still making great music. With great production quality from Harris and Kevin Shirley, the album flows together so seamlessly I had to look to make sure that I wasn’t on the same song. Iron Maiden has always liked venturing in and out of genres, and this progression into a prog/metal/rock hybrid is awesome, reminiscent of Somewhere in Time and Fear of the Dark. It’s great to hear them trying something new, and doing amazing at it nonetheless.  Definitely go check it out, it does suffer from some problems, but when it’s good it’s good.

RATING: 7/10

Front page photo from chartattack.com.