It seems like a bad dream now. When I first discovered Iron maiden it was the result of a chance encounter with a piece of red vinyl hidden amongst a relative’s disused collection which turned out to be the gloriously evil ‘number of the beast’. The love affair was cemented with the gloriously goofy video for ‘holy smoke’ (included here on this latter-years best of) only for Bruce Dickinson to exit the band in late 1993 and for the UK music press, ever a fickle bunch, to turn their back on the band.
December ’93 saw the band recruit former Wolfsbane singer Blaze Bayley and while their song-writing nous never deserted them, Blaze just couldn’t compete with the almighty presence that was Bruce Dickinson and the band struggled to maintain the momentum that they had been building up with the untouchable ‘fear of the dark’. Defiant to the last, the band gave countless interviews only to be asked the same old questions about relevancy by a press that had declared metal dead upon the arrival of grunge; then alive again, albeit in an almost unrecognisable form with the birth of ‘nu-metal’ whilst all but turning its back on traditional heavy metal, and it is hardly surprising that Maiden sought solace in mainland Europe where metal fans remained rather more aloof from the vagaries of fashion than their UK counterparts, and so Maiden rampaged on, slightly beaten but utterly undiminished in spirit, via the releases of ‘the X factor’ and ‘Virtual XI’.
Then the unthinkable happened. In 1999 Bruce (who hadn’t quite got round to recording a country and western album during his solo career) returned to the fold along with long-exiled guitarist Adrian Smith and a six-piece Iron maiden unleashed ‘The Wicker man’, the first broadside from the mildly progressive and gloriously heavy ‘Brave new world’ and the metal world collectively roared its appreciation. I remember reading an interview in Metal Hammer at the time of the release (an issue I still have today) in which the band basically outlined the reasons for Bruce’s return in terms of a football analogy: they wanted to be a first division band again and they needed each other to do it. The interview positively glowed with energy and Bruce, in particular, was keen to stress that the new incarnation of Maiden was an unstoppable monster. How much of it was flag-waving and hyperbole will never be known, but the most rewarding thing is that it has all become true. Maiden have spent the last twelve years of their career equalling and arguably even surpassing much of what might once have been considered their golden period to the point that they are now a globe-straddling metal institution and quite possibly the largest metal band in the world, possessed of albums so ludicrously good (I’m thinking particularly of ‘a matter of life and death here’) that one can only imagine the red-faced shame of some of the members of the UK press who so prematurely announced the band’s demise back in the mid-nineties.
Quite why Maiden remain so beloved is open to interpretation. To my mind there are a number of reasons, but the key points must surely be that Iron Maiden have never sold out, never given up and never, ever been defeated. It is true that they have a core sound which has caused some detractors to label the band ‘samey’, but then that core sound is what fans of the band desperately crave and the band have unarguably taken a number of bold steps over the years whilst never deserting true heavy metal nor deviating from the blueprint that made them so beloved in the first place. Moreover Iron Maiden have more fire and passion than any other band I have ever witnessed live. Just watch the opening of ‘Rock in Rio’ as Bruce flies on to the stage and you’ll see what I mean; you will not find a more committed frontman anywhere and the fact that he just happens to have a voice that is the envy of the western world helps too. The rest of the band, meanwhile, are consummate professionals and the driving force that is Steve Harris is impossible to overlook. As steady as a rock, the outspoken bassist has guided Maiden through rough times and good and not only has his musical vision been an inspiration to many but his intelligent and often historical lyrics are also a stick with which to beat those who claim that metal is unintelligent or poorly written. Finally, if the other two reasons aren’t enough, you have the beautiful, epic artwork featuring the band’s enduring mascot Eddie which grabs you every time you see it.
So here it is then, a retrospective covering Maiden’s work from 1990, at the tail-end of Bruce’s tenure, up to the present day and a mighty-fine collection it is. With twenty-three tracks on offer (it’s a double) the first thing that becomes apparent is that there was never the dip in song-writing quality during the nineties that many gleefully claimed. Songs such as ‘the clansman’ ‘holy smoke’ and ‘sign of the cross’ all rub shoulders joyfully with more recent epics such as ‘paschendale’, ‘when the wild winds blow’ and ‘the reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg’ and while it may rankle with some that poor old Blaze has been effectively erased from history with live versions of his tracks replacing the studio versions, few would argue that he performed them better than Bruce and so his loss could well be argued to be the album’s gain.
Indeed, such is the quality of Iron Maiden’s recent back catalogue that this collection will sit comfortably next to ‘Somewhere back in time’ – a collection that is hard to imagine anyone surpassing and which promisingly looks to the future with Maiden continuing the golden streak that was so recently cemented with the quite excellent ‘Final Frontier’. With highlights truly impossible to pick (after all we all have our own favourite Maiden moments and yours are just as likely to be right as mine) the only minor complaint is that it would have been nice to see a new track on the list for fans of the band who probably own all of their records anyway but then, with the band seemingly on tour forever perhaps there wasn’t time to cut one.
With stunning artwork, a track-listing that is enough to tempt most bands to just give up and fade away in despair, and a running time that shames ‘Lord of the Rings’, there really is nothing weak about the music on offer and while it is questionable as to who exactly it’s aimed at (fans who will buy it out of a completist loyalty? Casual metallers unfamiliar with the new songs? Newcomers in desperate need of an education?)  the ultimate assessment has to be that there are few bands who could release a near-140-minute, double-disc set of music that doesn’t have a single dull moment on it. A welcome assessment of the latter-years of a band whom many were eager to write off but whose phoenix-like rise to prominence has been an utter joy to witness this is real metal: beautiful, brutal, powerful and melodic and as such utterly irresistible.
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