• Rating:
It's difficult to review the fifteenth album of a band like Iron Maiden.
It's hard in 2010 to say something new about the maidens of rock.
It's tough to be innovative without being criticized by the nostalgics.
It's challenging to stay anchored to their traditional sound without feeling old.
Everything is difficult for those who carry such a monumental name on their shoulders.
Critics are ready to fire and the nostalgics ready to renounce their proselytism towards their old fathers. All nonsense. This "The Final Frontier" is truly a great album. A bit heavy let's admit, maybe verbose in some of its parts, it may not please the nostalgics of the maidens' old sound but fundamentally a truly great album, perhaps the best of the last 3 or 4.
Surely the introduction to the first track "The Final Frontier" leaves one at least stunned. The cover says Iron Maiden, but heaven the first notes sound solemn and apocalyptic and Bruce Dickinson's voice almost lost. A solemn and almost liturgical intro, followed by the catchy "The Final Frontier", a light and engaging track. It's with the second track "El Dorado", perhaps hastily chosen as a single from an album full of great songs, that the band starts to rev the engines. The sound is truly engaging, and even if the song then fades into a rather banal melody, there are some truly thrilling moments.
"Mother of Mercy" that follows is an amazing piece: Bruce Dickinson's voice climbs where mere mortals do not reach and paints splendid scenarios. One of the best ballads of Iron Maiden ever, and we do not exaggerate in saying this. The following "Coming Home" is a piece full of nostalgia and pathos, another gem of the album. Another couple of pearls of the album are in the second part of the work. In particular, the dramatic "Strablind" is splendid in its intensity and its crescendo.
Also "Isle of Avalon" and "The Talisman" are pieces worthy of applause, and if these pieces do not much recall the old sound of Iron Maiden, well, fundamentalists pardon me, but they are very beautiful and intense pieces. The transition from the acoustic part to the electric part of "The Talisman" is spectacular! The only space that Iron Maiden grants to their past is "The Alchemist", in which the old riffs seem to bring us back to the era of "Number of the Beast".
In closing: we really don’t mean to offend the old nostalgics but this "The Final Frontier" is indeed a great album, regardless of its distance from the maidens' old sound.
Long live the Maiden!!!
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