Friday, August 13, 2010

Album Review: Iron Maiden-The Final Frontier



Iron Maiden's reunion-era material has not really gone over well with me. I liked the first reunion record "Brave New World" but after that I haven't liked a single one. The Final Frontier continues my dissapointment with new Maiden records and hell this might even be the worst Iron Maiden record with Bruce Dickinson on it.

The main thing with The Final Frontier is the songs are just extremely weak. From the what the fuck opener "Satellite 15......The Final Frontier" with its really long,dumb intro and the lead single "El Dorado" with its bass line that sounds exactly the same as Heart's Barracuda I had a bad feeling about the rest of the record and I was only 2 tracks in. That bad feeling came true when I listened to the whole record and I was insanely bored. I mean I like prog metal a lot and I can appreciate slower material but it just does not work for Iron Maiden. They are a band that was pretty much meant to play fast(or even mid-paced) and when you take them out of their element they don't really succeed. Another glaring problem is how bad Bruce Dickinson's sounds on vocals. In my opinion Bruce Dickinson is the greatest heavy metal vocalist of all time but on The Final Frontier he sounds strained,exhausted and very weak. The guitar's are also way too low in the mix and the production as a whole is awful. In all honesty I that only postives about this record are the middle instrumental section in "Starblind" and "The Talismen"

The Final Frontier is just a straight up bad record. Iron Maiden is my 3rd favorite band of all time and it pains me to criticize them like this but this record just doesn't click at all. Their is a lack of good riffs,Bruce sounds awful and the songs are just extremely weak and boring. At the end of the year this record will absoultely be near the bottom of my list. I know there are going to be people out there that will want my head on a stake for this review but I just really can't find much of anything to like about this record. The Final Frontier is dull,lifeless and just plain bad.

1.5/5 Stars

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