Artist: Iron Maiden
Album: The Book Of Souls
Review date: April 13, 2016
Iron Maiden has done their part contributing to heavy metal and music in general, they are a true monster, unstoppable it seems. Fortunately they have not settled and continue to produce amazing music in their very particular fashion. Many worried Bruce Dickinson’s cancer would diminish their strength or put an end to this band but they proved everyone they are still kicking and stronger than most bands out there half their age. I feel nostalgic just by writing this review about such a great band because simply there are none like them, once they are gone we will lose a huge part of metal.
Some critics say bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden are living of past success and for this I will quote Slayer’s Kerry King “I would say [IRON] MAIDEN and METALLICA, no offense, are living on past success.”[1] First of all here is a big f@#$ you Kerry, you are so very wrong. Anyone who believes in that statement has clearly not listened to The Book of Souls nor has seen the Book of Souls World Tour. I had the chance to attend to one of their shows a few weeks ago and it was amazing. They could have played all their classics and the audience would have been content but they took a chance and filled the set with new songs and guess what? people loved it. Secondly if they had such a big success in the past well of course they are not going to shy away from it, a band cannot hide the fact that they came up with some of the most iconic rock songs and albums of the past two or three decades.
The Book of Souls is the sixteenth studio album by the band and this time they went for a double album with 6 and 5 tracks respectively. It looks like they had some extra material as this is their longest album sitting at 92 minutes and it also includes their longest track Empire of the Clouds, 18 minutes. As the title suggests the album talks a lot about souls and their eternal nature, how people and civilizations decay and cease to exist but souls remain.
The album kicks off with If Eternity Should Fail which is a heavily produced song and it lets you know what the rest of the album is about, then at the end of the song it introduces a studio character, Necropolis the harvester of the soul meat. This song is followed by Speed Of Light which is a cosmic metaphor.
The Great Unknown starts with a bass predominance and a narrative type of singing, common in other Maiden songs, the chorus then cheers up, later adding a couple of guitar solos. There are many changes in this song but everything is very coherent.
The Red And The Black introduces an acoustic guitar to the story which continues to build on the natural and ancient subject of the album. When The River Runs Deep basically talks about the most difficult times in life and how “There is no use in crying” and “Got to keep on trying”. The Book Of Souls again has an acoustic guitar intro and it’s a rather slow song telling the story of sacred goods imprinting their souls “to the book of lies, when a civilization dies”. Bruce Dickinson uses the Mayan reference as an analogy to what happens in current times.
The second CD is entirely consistent with the first one, there are no live songs, collaborations, alternate versions of tracks or any of the typical filler songs included in double albums.
While you listen to this album you feel the undeniable quality of experienced musicians who know what they are doing and work really hard to produce a top of the line product. Iron Maiden has always stayed close to their characteristic style and this record follows that line, unmistakable rhythm and melodies, high vocal pitches and after life related lyrics. The one thing I could point out is that none of the songs really stands out from the others but I am aware how hard it is to stumble upon metal anthems like Run to the Hills or Fear of the Dark. That being said this album is one of those you should keep near through time, it won’t get old.
Overall rating: 8.5 out of 10
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