THE FINAL FRONTIER

I was never a huge fan of Iron Maiden until this year. This was the third Iron Maiden album that I had bought, after "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" and "A Matter of Life and Death". When I first listened to this cd I took into account that they hadn't released and album in 5 plus years. But none the less I was blown away.

This album has so many great songs on it that it was hard not to like it. "Mother of Mercy" is such a great song because of the great guitar lines and the vocals are pretty good too. The same goes for "The Talisman" which is a very solid song. Of all the songs it is one of the more progier ones. They have even incorporated an epic, "Where the Wild Wind Blows", which is a much softer song in the beginning, but then it builds up to heavier music. This is a really nice touch to another wise heavier album. It's amazing that after all these years that this band still has it and that their voices aren't blown.

Besides the songs being very good, I would like to congratulate them on not turning into the Rolling Stones and just release an album to make money. They did a very good job producing and playing on the album, especialy considering that they are 50 something.

One thing that I do have to say is that their creative gene might be a little washed up. Many of the songs sound the same, and after enough listens you can really tell that most of them are the same. If it weren't for that it would have gotten a 5 star review from me, but none the less it definitely deserves 4 stars.