Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier

August 23, 2010

Reviewer: Rottenbucher

So here it is the first Iron Maiden album in 4-years and their 15^th overall.  Upon first listen, The Final Frontier is out there. The guitars sound the muddiest of their career and their trademarked melody has taken a bit of back seat. It takes the fifth track, “The Alchemist” to finally reach a true lead-off, short and sweet single and then the album swerves back into oppressive song-length territory. No, this isn’t Seventh Son, nor is this No Prayer for the Dying. Instead Maiden proves they can still grow and mature as artists without reinventing the wheel. The Final Frontier requires about 3 or more listens before it clicks.

“Satellite 15… The Final Frontier” is the most experimental Maiden has ever gotten. It starts out as some sort of sci-fi tribal nonsense with Dickinson babble before morphing into classic Maiden. “El Dorado” is a little too chunky but upon close listen some great grooves and subtle riffs are unearthed. Both “Mother of Mercy” and “Coming Home” sound less Maiden and more like Dickinson’s later solo material.  With heavier riffs, a short length (when compared to the majority of the album’s material) and even splashes of clean picking, both tracks are successful yet would seem more comfortable on The Chemical Wedding or Tyranny of Souls. The aforementioned “The Alchemist” is perhaps the most classic sounding song on the album.  Here the melodies are fully in-place, the solos blaze, the bass gallops and Dickinson belts one out of the park.

“Isle of Avalon” struggles to gain traction and then heads in a slightly different direction than expected.  While the opening intro would lead the seasoned Maiden fans to expect a blistering epic of melodic proportions, it instead unrolls several layers prog-ish, rock-friendly riffs.  The midsection allows for a lot of almost un-Maiden soloing. Unfortunately “Starblind” is the stinker of the disc. Dickinson sings over some solos, the midsection plods along and the majority of the track is just too repetitive. Perhaps if the track was trimmed it would have worked.

The final three tracks of the album are worth the price of admission alone. “The Talisman” starts the band down a much more Progressive Metal avenue than ever heard before.  The aforementioned track is heavy on the gallop and the melody but also twists and turns nicely with undulant riffing. Dickinson gets aggressive with his vocals in spots, almost growling in areas and testing the height of his register in others. “The Man Who Would Be King” seems to be Maiden by rote at first but then the song soars to towards a different level, drifting and diving between stratospheric melodies and airy riffs. The gargantuan “Where the Wild Wind Blows” proves the band can package it up and unfold a majestic epic like no other.

Since Dickinson and Adrian Smith rejoined, it seems as though the band has been stuck on trying to force everything into the molds of “Can I Play With Madness” or “Fear of the Dark.” A Matter of Life and Death started moving away from this and The Final Frontier completely abandons the trend. And that is probably what makes The Final Frontier a difficult album. Aside from “The Alchemist” and half of the title track, everything else is moody, brooding and rather atypical. It’s definitely their darkest disc since The X Factor and their heaviest sounding album to date. It also is the first album of theirs to really allow all three guitarists to go off on soloing tangents, sometimes even sounding more blues-based in delivery than the typical short-burst shred.

The Final Frontier is a tough disc to crack, but it blossoms nicely into one of Maiden’s most unique and rewarding moments of the 6-piece era. The band has tweaked their ingredients, but kept the recipe. At this point in their career, Iron Maiden can only compete with themselves and reward their global fan base.  With The Final Frontier they have challenged themselves and their fans and it succeeded in being another gem in their crown.

TRACK LISTING

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*Comments:

1.  Satellite 15…The Final Frontier
2.  El Dorado
3.  Mother of Mercy
4.  Coming Home
5.  The Alchemist
6.  Isle of Avalon
7.  Starblind
8.  The Talisman
9.  The Man who would be King
10.  When the Wild Wind Blows

Total playing time:  76:35

Release Date: August 16, 2010
Label: EMI / Sony Music