BRAVE NEW WORLD

From the time that Adrian Smith left the band, until he came back, I felt all the studio albums after Seventh Son of a Seventh Son were far from impressive. Iron Maiden, Powerslave, Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son were all albums that represented the sheer genius of Iron Maiden to me, with Piece Of Mind and Killers not being too bad either. After the Blaze Bayley, a vocalist that was not a particular favorite of mine, left the band Adrian and Bruce would make a welcome return to the band, and a thunderous miracle that would prove for the band. The band would come to have 3 guitarists now, as well as Harris, Dickinson, and McBrain and a fantastic line up this was for Brave New World. This album to me, not only revived much of the classic Iron Maiden sound, but somehow among all the classic flavor of the sound it still had a comtemporary edge to it, which would only be a good thing to me and enhanced the listening experience even more.

The album doesn't start on a particularly strong note, but by no means is The Wickerman a bad song. It has a very classic fast paced Maiden vibe, and a superb emotional guitar solo from Smith. While none of the song are what we could really call progressive, I think that many of the songs on here are the most progressive effort yet by Maiden. The Ghost Of The Navigator and Brave New World give some similar feelings and thoughts as I listen, so I'll talk about them together. The Ghost of The Navigator is less straight forward in stucture than either Brave New World and The Wicker Man, but some of the melodies in Ghost of The Navigator and BNW have similar feelings to them and I just think there couldn't have been a better song other than BNW to be next after Ghost of The Navigator on the track. Both again have great guitar solos, but I favor the ones on BNW slightly more, although Ghost of The Navigator is a slightly better song due to the more creative lyrics and less use of lyrical repetition during the chorus that BNW has. My favorite on this album is surely Blood Brothers. Despite the chorus having repetitive lyrics, they seem to work well. The lush orchestral sounding arrangment of both the guitars and keyboards during the chorus positively just floor me. After the guitar solo, there is another insanely beautiful moment between the guitars and keyboards, and I love to just put this part on repeat and let it lift me above the ground. Just an absolutely perfect song and the unquestionable masterpiece of the album for me and very nice to see some relatively simple yet awesomely effective keyboards from Steve Harris. After Blood Brothers, The Mercenary just comes off as a bit disappointing, a good song at best but certainly not great. The only real highlight is the solo, and at the end of each of the two solos there is always a bent note with wide vibrato, and it sounds so effective and furious in this context. Fortunately the album picks up again with Dream Of Mirrors, which starts off fairly slow and even a little quiet and just before the 6 minute mark it picks up a lot of pace, and it was a great move to my mind. This song also has one of my favorite vocal performances from Bruce too. Although fairly straight forward, it's just a great and well written song that never fails to interest in it's nearly 9 and a half minute running time. Back to another more straight forward rocker with The Fallen Angel, which is nothing remarkable, but the instrumental/guitar solo section does capture my interest everytime, and Bruce sounds great in the chorus. Using the Phyrgian scale, The Nomad captures an Oriental feeling and this song has one of the best instrumental sections on the album. Great performances all round from the band. While being another of the less complex songs on here, Out Of The Silent Planet has some awesome melodies and the choruses towards the later part of the song are just so catchy and melodic I almost want to sing along, the only thing stopping me is knowing I couldn't do it without butchering Bruce's vocals. A heavier start for the album closer The Thing Line Between Love and Hate, which has everything from catchy verses and choruses to fantastic guitar solos, some nice bass lines from Steve Harris and a very nice instrumental section. Definitely a good album closer.

This is an absolutely top notch effort from Iron Maiden, and for those who are looking for something after the disappointing run of albums from 1990 onwards, can do a lot worse than to check out this fabulous return to amazing form by Maiden. If there is one complaint, it's that Steve's bass doesn't always stick out as much as some of the other albums, but that is a very minor complaint for this excellent album. One of my favorite Maiden albums and it has many progressive elements and I imagine this can appeal to a lot of people and not just metal fans.