SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON

This is one of my favourite Iron Maiden albums even though I don't consider it their best. It is very melodic and almost proggy in many places with layered guitars and some very intense instrumental passages but it remains very firmly a heavy metal album. And it is an album with no weak tracks whatsoever. However, it does have one shortcoming in that it was a concept album released in the same year as Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime which is one of the finest concept albums ever. In fact I remember watching an interview with Bruce Dickinson (I think) in which he said something along the lines of wishing they'd avoided the concept album tag after hearing Mindcrime.

Anyway, this is an excellent album which will appeal to many prog fans. It certainly holds a lot of appeal for me and so I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who hasn't heard it yet.