THE FINAL FRONTIER

Final Frontier is often called Iron Maiden at their most proggy, in part because over half the songs are eight-minute plus. Well, at least it is their most un-Iron Maiden (relatively speaking of course, Maiden is Maiden). In place where you usually expect blazing guitar harmonies, you'll often find psychedelic solos, melodic solos, a power ballad and even more folk than usual. However, longer is not always proggier. They are just really long regular songs, with long clean intros, long verses and chorus repetitions, and especially the last songs are structured very similar. Another issue for me is sound. It's a strangely quiet production for metal, Bruce Dickinson on faster songs strains his voice even more than usual. And I'm not hearing the possibilities afforded by three guitars. Seriously, I was at their Moscow concert once, and a lot of foreign acts seem to take Russian audience for granted. One of guitarist was probably so drunk, that instead of al playing he would often try to do the "axe" and couldn't hit strings. Guess three guitars not always necessary.