Universal Music Enterprises

Four years after their last studio album and fresh off of a massive world tour that saw them visiting every corner of the Earth, Iron Maiden has finally delivered their latest studio opus, the daunting Final Frontier. Following their long runnng evolution, The Final Frontier is another album rife with a myriad of layers and deep complexities that continue to unravel even after the twentieth listen. If you're one of those that are frustrated with the band's growing propensity towards a progressive direction, then jump off of the train now. The band isn't writing for you. They aren't writing music for the diehard fan either. They're writing for themselves and they refuse to hold your hand in the matter. They're going to throw you into the deep end of the pool and your only options are to swim or drown.

Like the last album, A Matter Of Life And Death, The Final Frontier is packed to the brim with lengthy epics. Of the ten album tracks, six go past the seven minute mark. It was also the same way on the last album. Brave New World and Dance Of Death each had four tracks of similar length. Clearly a pattern can be seen emerging. The band obviously has the most fun in creating these massive songs and over time have chosen to concentrate more and more on them when it comes to songwriting. These have always been their greatest strength in my opinion and this direction has been working well for them. If it doesn't work for you, then you can always listen to something else.

The album starts off with a tumble, I must say. Satellite 15... The Final Frontier is actually two songs thrown within the same track, the only link between the parts having to do with the narrative that the lyrics tell. The first half of it starts out somewhat promising, a jam that suggests something completely out of left field, but the band never follows up on it. After about 4 minutes the band drops the whole thing and goes into standard short single song mode. The title track portion is really derivative and ultimately the whole thing feels like a hollow start to the album.

After what is arguably the worst opening track to any Iron Maiden album (I'm even taking Wildest Dreams into consideration), the band rebounds nicely with El Dorado. It was the first song that was unveiled from the album and got a greatly mixed reaction from their fanbase. It is very atypical for a Maiden song, but it still definitely has that Maiden stamp all over it. Next is Mother Of Mercy, a song dealing with the ramifications of war seen through the eyes of a soldier. It's kind of a stylistic leftover from the previous album, though nowhere near as good as the top songs from that one. I do take great issue with the lyrical arrangement to it. It's almost like the band wrote the lyrics before writing the music and the vocal harmony and subsequently refused to further edit the lyrics to properly fit within the framework of the song. It's a maddening decision that sometimes pops up elsewhere on the album.

Following that one is Coming Home, the first really great song on the album. Much like El Dorado, this one doesn't feel like an Iron Maiden song. In fact, I'm having a hard time believing that this was anything other than a Bruce Dickinson solo song that Steve Harris heard and ended up swiping for Iron Maiden instead (he's done this before with Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter). The pre-chorus to this song is among my favorite parts of the whole album, not to mention the incredibly catchy chorus. This song could have easily been on Accident Of Birth. Another great highlight is The Alchemist. This is the most blatantly old-school sounding song that the band has done since Bruce came back a decade ago. Perhaps inspired by their Somewhere Back In Time tour, this one could had easily been on Powerslave. Heck, it's better than half of the songs on that album.

We are now at the halfway point and all of the rest are the epics. Some would argue that these five songs may have fared better if they were intersected with the shorter songs, but I think they work best in this arrangement. The first is Isle Of Avalon. I don't actually have much to say about this one, it's my least favorite of the second half. It does have some interesting bits within its nine minutes, but it's the only one of the epics that I feel could have used further editting. Starblind is the next one and is perhaps the most musically engaging of all the songs. The arrangements within this song are really mindwarping and it has some of the best lyrics. Next is my favorite song on the album, The Talisman. Musically this one is fairly straight-forward, starting with an understated bass intro until it kicks into gear about two minutes in. The mood keeps escalating until it erupts with the fist-in-the-air worthy chorus. It may be nine minutes in length but it doesn't feel like it at all. Maybe I'm just used to their mammoth-sized tracks by now, or maybe it's just a testament to their songwriting ability. You be the judge.

We are now nearing the end of the album and we find ourselves with The Man Who Would Be King. It's follows the same template as the other epics on the album but flawed by some more questionable choices in lyrics. They really need someone with the balls to tell them when something isn't working and Kevin Shirley is not that person. Closing the album is When The Wild Wind Blows. At an even eleven minutes, it is the band's third longest song to date and it is one of their most captivating ones. The story tells of an old couple that had sealed themselves in a bunker, waiting for a nuclear fallout that never happens and the music in the song mirrors this tale: slowly building up to a destructive climax that doesn't happen. The last verse is one of the most chilling that Steve Harris has ever penned, leaving the listener with an unsettling feeling that is hard to shake.

The overall mix of the album isn't great, though it's much better than the one that the last album had. The guitars are rather low in the mix and the vocals are really high, though after a few listens the levels just settle in and stop being a concern. I do need to comment on Bruce's vocal performance though. I understand that he is in his fifties now and certainly has maintained his voice much better than most of his contemporaries, but I can't help but wonder if he really gave it his all. Some of these songs lack that flourish that Bruce tends to bring, almost like if he was sitting on a lounge chair sipping on a margarita in between takes. It's small things like that that keep some of these songs from being great instead of being merely good.

So yeah, it's not perfect but it is undeniably Maiden.


01. Satellite 15... The Final Frontier
02. El Dorado
03. Mother Of Mercy
04. Coming Home
05. The Alchemist
06. Isle Of Avalon
07. Starblind
08. The Talisman
09. The Man Who Would Be King
10. When The Wild Wind Blows

Score: 8/10