The Final Frontier: Review

Recently I managed to get hold of the new Iron Maiden album- The Final Frontier, in fact I went and got it the day it was released. In this entry I aim to review it in full. As you may well know I am an Iron Maiden fan, so I will be biased, but I will try and make this an accurate critique of the album.

Ok, here goes. The album starts with a track called Satellite 15..... The Final Frontier. This is a two part song. The first part (Satellite 15) is a very atmospheric song, with roughly the first half being instrumental. It's not bad, but I feel it is too long. It should be shorter, acting as an into to The Final Frontier. The second half of the song, The Final Frontier is a straightforward Iron Maiden classic, it's got the clear chorus, and would easily fit into a live set.

El Dorado, the second track of the album, was previously released as a free download from the Iron Maiden website. I downloaded this the day it was available I believe, but it took me a couple of listens to really get into it. After about two or three times through it dawned on me that this is actually a fantastic track. The lyrics are tight, creative, and the vocals are well delivered. Overall this is one of the best tracks on the album.

The next two tracks: Mother of Mercy and Coming Home are both good tracks. The former is solid track with a lovely intro. The lyrical content is alike to something from A Matter Of Life And Death, with a war related subject. It's a good track, not a classic, but I quite like it. Coming Home is one of the songs that Maiden do very well, those that start dark and slowly, picking up pace as they go. The chorus to this track is brilliant, well suited for live performance in my opinion. A really good track, very catchy.

The next three tracks are The Alchemist, Isle of Avalon, and Starblind. All of them are the tracks that are not designed to be hits, rather they are meant to fill the album while still being solid tracks. These manage that task well. I particularly like Starblind, it's my favourite of the three at the moment.

After that the next two tracks are The Talisman and The Man Who Would Be King. The Talisman starts slowly with a lovely guitar part creating a melody to work in conjunction with the vocals. After a couple of minutes the heavier riff begins and the song picks up speed. I have to admit that the chorus gets a little repetitive after a while, which you notice because it's a very short line. It's a pretty solid track, a good song. The Man Who Would Be King is another track that is up there with the best tracks of the album. Like so many others on this album it starts with a lovely intro. It's a bit of a weird song, but it's especially good towards the end.

The album ends with an 11 minute epic called When The Wild Wind Blows. It is, for me, hands down the best track on the album. It takes a ballad like form, with a lyrical content of an impending disaster. The lyrics fit in beautifully with the guitar to form a fantastic song. It's definitely one of the best tracks of it's type Iron Maiden have written, a great way to bring the album to a close.

Overall it's a fantastic album, it's a little different to what they usually produce, but it's still a brilliant piece of work. My top three tracks of the album have to be (in order of appearance): Satellite 15..... The Final Frontier, El Dorado, and When The Wild Wind Blows. If I had to give it a rating I'd have to say it hovers around the 9/10 mark. It's one of their best albums, but it's not quite on the same level as The Number of the Beast, but then that's not really a fair criticism because I think that it's nigh impossible to match that album. So in my opinion this album is one of the best I've heard in a long time, certainly the best so far this year.

Thanks for reading, as usual leave a comment if you want.

Cheers,

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