THE BOOK OF SOULS

Iron Maiden, still relevant after all these years, when many of the their peers long faded away, returns with a double album that has three 10-minute songs, can only be good, right? Well, yes and no. Its nice to see that the epic metal veterans haven't lost a bit their knack for killer intros, vocal melodies and the smarts to know that when pushing 60, it suits to tone things down a bit (only slightly. of course, since this is Iron Maiden we're talking about). At the same time, the scope of the album sheds an even bigger light on the fact that the longer songs tend to last a verse and a solo too many. 13-minute The Red and the Black, for instance, has less variation than you'd expect and is basically an upbeat marching song almost all the way through. As for the epic that's on everybody's mind, Iron Maiden's first 18-minute song, Empire of the Clouds, it is quite good, with the lush 7-minute beginning part as perfect as any, but a boring instrumental section at the 7-to-10 minute mark bogging things down a bit.