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Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death Columbia 2003 After a sabbatical year (with an expectation of a small charity tour) Iron Maiden has reformed late 2002 and began working on the follow-up to their brilliant album Brave New World, released in 2000. Although I've been a Maiden fan for a long time, Dance Of Death is a big disappointment. Does that mean it's a big flop? Not at all! Dance Of Death receives great reviews and has great success in sales. It's a classic Maiden album and contains everything a classic Maiden album should have. Although absolutely nothing more. Already before Dance Of Death was released there was big commotion in the Maiden fan base. One of Iron Maiden's big strength has been their CD/LP covers with their mascot Eddie. In the golden age of Number Of The Beast, Piece Of Mind, Powerslave and Somewhere In Time, their covers got more impressive with every album. This lead to a very lucrative business of posters and t-shirts. Just how many people know Iron Maiden just by the logo and pictures of Eddie, but haven't heard one song. After a fight between Iron Maiden's management and longtime Maiden-artist Derek Riggs, it was very clear that Riggs would never make another Iron Maiden cover again. This is a terrible shame since Riggs has designed ALL the great Iron Maiden covers (with the only exception of Fear Of The Dark, X-Factor and Virtual XI). The absence of Derek Riggs' contribution on Dance Of Death, left the Maiden fan's wondering how the new cover would look like. I can assure you that the disappointment, when the cover was first revealed on IronMaiden.com, could not had been any greater. The cover of Dance Of Death is in one word: terrible. Although Eddie is present on the cover, his weak presence gets overwhelmed by a group of VERY bad designed CGI-people. Everything is bad about the CGI designs, for example the woman on the front which turns her head towards the camera with her neck turned in a way one could impossible survive. Also there's a wolf with very strange bending legs and a man standing on his hands with a 'displaced' shoulder. This very bad cover caused such a disturbance that even on CGI-designers forums (which have nothing to do with Iron Maiden) people started discussions about the absolute lack of craftsmanship on this new design. A lot of people were also thinking/hoping that this was a joke from Iron Maiden, just to tease the bootleggers (people who sell illegal copies before the actual release) and that on the release date of Dance Of Death there will be a stunning new cover. This rumor got strengthened by the fact after the release of the cover, Bruce Dickinson said on MTV that the album cover will surprise everyone. Unfortunately this interview was prerecorded when the cover wasn't yet revealed on IronMaiden.com. The disappointing cover made people even more anticipated about the music on Dance Of Death. The music on the album should be very good to make up for this! It's with great grief that I must inform you that this is not the case. The first song on the album is called Wildest Dreams (which is also their first single). A song without any character at all. Ok, there's no denying that's it's a recognizable Maiden song, but the chorus is incredibly boring and the guitar riffs are everything but original. The next song called Rainmaker begins very promising. Finally a optimal use of the three guitars on the intro of this song! It's very unfortunate that short after the intro, the songs descents again in a very cliché song with also a very boring chorus. I won't be reviewing all the songs on this album, because almost all of them can be described as: recognizable Maiden sound, but boring and very weak choruses indeed. Fortunately there are a few expectations which make this album a little bit more interesting. No More Lies, Dance Of Death and Journeyman are the only surprises on the album. No More lies starts as another boring clone of The Clansman and Blood Brothers, but as the song progresses it actually leads to a catchy and surprising chorus. It's a shame that this song keeps on going for far too long and just like to other songs, you are tempted to press the skip button when you're only halfway through the song. Iron Maiden promised that with this album they will provide us with more 7+ minutes songs, this made a lot of people very exited, but I'm sure that no one expected that Maiden would keep repeating the same choruses and riffs just to reach to 7 minutes, this contributes very much in the big level of boredom on this album. the song Dance Of Death is the only exception on this. Although the song plays on for more than 8 minutes, it provides us with a lot more twists and turns. This song is a very clear imitation of Maiden's classic Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, but it doesn't surpasses this one by a long shot. This brings me to the only masterpiece on the album. Journeyman is a song which has nothing for me to bitch on. It's Maiden's first full acoustic song with a lot of support from a orchestral background. A beautiful song, that gently nurses the wounds in my Iron Maiden-heart caused by his preceding songs. Please don't get me wrong, because I have receive no pleasure at bashing Iron Maiden, because it's been my number one band for a long time, but the production and sound on this album is as awful as the cover. The bass is much too obvious in the mix, it's impossible to hear that there are actually three lead guitars, the double-bass sounds again (just like BNW) like the flapping of a seagull covered in oil and Bruce Dickinson's voices sounds like only one thing: retirement. Maiden have promised to bring out a Dolby 5.1 version of Dance Of Death, but that seems like a very unnecessary addition (although a 5.1 version of only Journeyman would be very much appreciated). I don't like hearing a muddy sound out of my speakers, let alone hearing it like I was in midst of this. As reported before, Dance Of Death is a big hit and has reached very high chart positions all over the world. Although I think this is thanks to the great fan base Maiden have achieved with their great history and Brave New World which confirmed a return of the great Maiden. Iron Maiden have announced after this tour never to do an arena tour again (they will only do festivals after that), so I wouldn't be surprised if this is their final album. Although I hope they will make another one so this one doesn't get into the metalhistorybooks as the last words from the Iron Maiden, because they deserve better. 60/100 Michiel |
