DANCE OF DEATH
I've been waiting three years for this fugger. Three God F-ing years for the beast to knock on my door, pull his pants down, and fart in my face...umm, yeah. Three years after releasing
Brave New World, IRON MAIDEN and their fearless mascot Eddie return with the band's thirteenth studio effort,
Dance Of Death. With this disc, Maiden shows us once again that they could all care less about the current musical trends, or fashion statements; They're fuckin' Maiden, and they wear stretch pants, ripped t-shirts, demim, and they have a screaming zombie for a mascot. That's who they are, and playing their brand of old school metal is what they're good at. The best way I can compare the two discs is to say that
Brave New World is like a quickie with a fat groupie out behind a Wendy's dumpster, and
Dance Of Death is like spending the weekend with a thousand dollar-a-night hooker at the Plaza Hotel. In other words, the guys really hit their stride and returned to their true form on this disc.
The first single, "Wildest Dreams" just has that classic Maiden stink all over it; Massive riffs, Dickinson's howling vocals, and a big-ass chorus that makes you want to drive down the highway, jump the median, and speed into an oncoming 18-wheeler...or at least drive fast.
"No More Lies" features one of their signature long-as-hell, clean intros before launching into a full blown headbanging fest. My one complaint is that the chorus could have been stronger on this one. Listening to Bruce shriek "No more lies!" eleven times in a row makes me want to shove a spork in my fucking temple.
For those of us who have eight and a half minutes to kill listening to a song about the Third Battle of Ypres from World War I, there's track 8, "Paschendale".
One song that totally blows my wig off is the final track on the disc, "Journeyman". It's an all-acoustic tune that in my opinion, is one of the prettiest songs these guys have ever recorded.
Personally, I'm not all that nuts about the cover, which looks like a scene out of the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman crap-fest,
Eyes Wide Shut, but it's a small price to pay for such a nut-crushing masterpiece.
