The Metal Files

What a terrible album cover!

I’m at a loss for words (pun intended) on trying to review this album.  Anyone that knows me knows I always have words, especially when it comes to talking about music.  But this is a little bit difficult.  But now I am reviewing an album by my all time favorite band ever…EVER!  There is no other band that could be #1 for me, it’s just not possible.  But for the sake of my adoring public *cough*, I’ll try to scribble out some drivel for your voracious reading palettes.

I don’t need to go back into the annals of The Metal Files and rehash my love for Maiden, it’s all there for you to peruse on your own.  But for as much as I have loved them since 1984, I have not been so blinded by fandom to think that they can do no wrong.  They’ve released their share of shit over the years.  What?  You want that list?  It’s ugly and many will disagree, but here goes:

• Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (I can tolerate it better now than when it was released, but I detested it for years upon years)
• Fear of the Dark
• The X-Factor
• Virtual XI
• Dance of Death

Did you notice that The Final Frontier didn’t make the list?  Look again, it’s not up there.  Don’t get me wrong, this album is not ‘awesome’ or ‘great’ or ‘brilliant’ or even ‘ground-breaking’, but it is quite a solid album…with some warts.  It’s the album that I expected after A Matter of Life and Death, which I loved.

I heard 30 second clips from each of the songs about a month ago and noticed something going on with either Bruce’s voice or the production of his voice.  It sounded raspy, unclear and low in the mix.  I honestly thought Maiden leaked rough mixes as a joke to fool their adoring public.  I was wrong.  Bruce sounds tired on this which is a bit surprising as he sounded great on the tour.  While I don’t hear any auto-tuner done on his voice,  it is pretty clear that much of his vocals were punched in.  There are too many areas where even the mighty Air Raid Siren would physically not be able to catch his breath if he tried to sing some of this stuff straight through.  And that’s not a big deal, bands have been recording vocals like this for decades.

When first seeing the tracklistings and the lengths of the songs, I knew what we were going to get; lots of intros and outtros and long repetitive choruses.  We get some of that on this record for sure, but it doesn’t seem as much of the repetitiveness as we’ve seen on recent recordings by “Ron Maiden and the Dixie Chickens” (aka Iron Maiden).

Something I noticed on this album and the last one is the “absence” of Steve Harris.  Sure you can hear him in the intros and in the main parts of the songs clanking along on his P-bass, but where are the signature ‘Arry bass runs?  I just don’t hear them and have missed that in recent years.  There are some areas where Nicko’s right foot still lets you know that he’s a bad mofo, but some of his fills seems to lack the energy and creativity that my favorite drummer used to have.  Yes, he’s always been “Mr. 4-on-the-floor”, but it seems to happen way too much on this album.

While it pains me to say this, my favorite track on the album was penned by Jannick Gers:  The Alchemist.  It’s the shortest song on the album clocking in at a mere 4’29”.  It’s also the most energetic and upbeat song on the record.  Everything else is mid-paced with a few bursts here and there.  But still, get Jannick out of the band already!  Sure he’s been there for 20 years now but make him go away.

Adrian Smith has writing credits on 6 of the 10.  Some of his stuff in the classic Maiden era were Maiden’s best songs.  He’s a talented guy and I loved his solo album, but what I am hearing on here doesn’t have the classic “H” feel to it.  Of course, this isn’t your father’s Maiden either.

Dave Murray gets some credit on The Man Who Would Be King.  Upon my first listen to that track, I thought to myself, “Self?  This one must’ve been written by Dave Murray.”   It just seems like a Dave song, I don’t know any better way to explain it.  Neither good nor bad.

I’ve read some other reviews of this album where people are giving accolades to the closing track When The Wind Blows.  It’s 10+ minutes long, Maiden’s 3rd longest song ever.  In general I don’t care for it.  I don’t like the way that the guitar follows the vocals or vice versa.  But the last few minutes of this song give us a flash of classic Maiden.

It took me a few listens but I realized something…this album reminds me a lot of one of their older albums…No Prayer For The Dying.  I’m not sure exactly why it brings back memories of that album but it does, sans the retardedly goofy lyrics of NPFTD.  Since Dance of Death, Maiden has been plodding along, playing it safe.  It’s worked well on some songs, on others not so much.

All in all, The Final Frontier isn’t terrible and I’ll spin it several more times before this week is over, but it won’t rank up there in my favorite Maiden albums, not even close.  Still, it’s better than what some of the other “classic” metal bands have been putting out in recent years (Nostradamus anyone?).  If you’ve liked Maiden’s stuff since Brave New World (or anything from the Gers era), then you will not be disappointed.  If you only care for the pre-1990 stuff, don’t bother with this.  It will be a waste of time for you.

6.5/10 is my rating.  It could have been a lot worse, and like anything else, it could have been a lot better.  I guess I really wasn’t at a loss for words…big ‘orra!