Iron Maiden
Fear Of The Dark

A good job, released at a time when there was too much doubt about the Irons, or simply yet another commercial operation executed by Iron Maiden after the departure of the great Adrian Smith?
After owning and listening to this CD for four years, I still have yet to understand it myself.
1992: in the United States, masterpieces of Death Metal were flourishing like they would never be seen again. Thrash was declining, after the disappointing releases by Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer in limbo, searching for a new drummer after the departure of the never too praised Dave Lombardo. In England, the "Monsters Of Rock" is held: Iron Maiden, who after "No Prayer For The Dying" inaugurated the series of failures that characterized the difficulties the five faced and not always overcame successfully in the '90s, thus seize the opportunity to promote their new work, "Fear Of The Dark," while being admired by a Kerry King eager to make their acquaintance and doing everything to play in their company.
After Adrian Smith's departure in 1989, the guitarist-composer who, along with the brilliant Steve Harris, composed the soul of the British band, and the subsequent recruitment of Janick Gers, technically and compositionally different from Smith, the Irons, to use a delicate and feminine expression, sold out to the mainstream, hurriedly releasing in 1990 the poor "No Prayer For The Dying": the definition of "commercial" justly attributed to the album found its foundations in the fact that the record was nothing but a bland rehash in a slightly reworked "Maiden" style of déjà vu riffs already heard in the past and readapted to the usual canons of Classic Heavy Metal, and two magnificent songs, "Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter" and "Holy Smoke," which clashed badly with the rest, couldn't save the album from anonymity and ranked it as one of the lesser successful episodes in the Maiden discography.
With this "Fear Of The Dark" two years later, the Irons used the exact same formula adopted for the previous fiasco, composing three historic and magnificent songs (the furious and lightning-fast "Be Quick Or Be Dead," the poetic and Celtic-tinged "Afraid To Shoot Strangers," and the wonderful title track, all songs that have now entered the repertoire of the best Maiden) from which equal number of videos were made to attract the metal crowd, who believed they had an exceptional album in their hands given the high quality of the "videoed" songs but found themselves caught off guard and disappointed after discovering that the only interesting solutions in the album were just these.
What to say about monotonous songs, lacking bite and so much of déjà vu, such as the AC/DC-like "From Here To Eternity," which reprises "Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be" by the band led by the virtuoso Angus Young without even remotely reaching the Australians' quality levels, or the unlistenable "Fear Is The Key," the pathetic ballad "Wasting Love," and the merely sufficient "Chains Of Misery," not to mention the useless "The Fugitive," "Judas Be My Guide," or "Weekend Warrior," predictable and banal right from the titles?
No luck: the last album in the '90s of the immense Bruce Dickinson, who always defends himself very well with his incredible voice and who, after the cold welcome the album received, rightfully decided to leave the vocal parts to the grotesque Blaze Bayley who ruined even more the Maiden with hacks like "The X Factor" and "Virtual XI," proves simply disastrous and devoid of any kind of bite.
The three points I give it, therefore, go respectively to "Be Quick Or Be Dead," "Afraid To Shoot Strangers," and the magnificent title track, a rose among the trash of a job born and lived simply badly. The times of "The Number Of The Beast" are just pleasant memories, and age (and money) are beginning to be felt all too forcefully.