VIRTUAL XI

This is by far the worst Iron Maiden album and I won't blame it on Blaze because X-Factor was pretty decent. There's not much to defend about this album. It has it's moments, but the flaws far outweigh any good parts. The production is lacking and much of it is just generic.

High Points

The Clansman is the best tune and if I could cut the "can't let them take anymore" intermission out with some instrumental parts it would be a great song.

The Educated Fool is the 2nd best song on here, but that isn't saying much.

The breakdown in Lightning Strikes Twice is awesome, but the rest of the song sucks really bad!

Angel and the Gambler is one of those sing-along live numbers and while it is a cool song, at 8 minutes I would expect more substance, but instead we get the same chorus for most the song.

Low Points

Lightning Strikes Twice is terrible except for already mentioned climax/breakdown of the song.

Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger is horrendous. The lyrics are terrible. Most the riffs are goofy. I don't care to hear this song ever again.

I am a huge Maiden fan and I've seen them live over 10 times, but I have to honest. I don't know what happened with this album. I saw them on the X-Factor and they were great, but on the V-11 tour it was really bad. I have this MTV video filmed in Brazil on this tour and Blaze sounds like poop. It's actually painful to watch. I like Blaze(his 10 dimension album is very good) but Maiden must have realized he would never be able to keep up for a whole tour. I know they picked him for his unique voice and it worked good on The X-Factor, but they had to have known he couldn't hang with Evil that Men Do or Hallowed. they never once played Run to the Hills with Blaze because it would have been a tragedy!