IRON MAIDEN
A Brave New World (CMC International)
Reviewed by Christophe Chuvan

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If you were to believe the word on the streets, heavy metal is back. Actually, it seems like it's been coming back for ten years, which makes one wonder if it had ever left in the first place. Anyhow, the fans have taken up the chant again but with renewed fervour this time around and they've got good reason to: Eddie's back.

After the announcement last year that Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith were rejoining the fold, this album was always going to be one of the most anticipated releases of 2000. Could Bruce still hack it? How was Maiden going to cope with three guitar players? Could Bruce and Steve Harris stand together in the same room for more than five minutes, let alone be in a band together? Well, apart from this last question, which remains open to debate, the answers to these questions are here, at last, and they're going to make a lot of people happy.

This album covers a lot of ground musically. From the neo-punk riffage of "The Wicker Man" to the epic "The Thin Line Between Love & Hate" to the freight-train rush of "Fallen Angel", Maiden sounds like a team of rejuvenated warriors revisiting their best moves, reassuring themselves - and the rest of the world - that they've still got it.

Nonetheless, people rejoicing about a return to the glory days should first ask themselves which glory days they have in mind. Indeed, fans yearning for the onslaught of "Killers" or "Number of the beast" might be disappointed to find a record more reminiscent of "Somewhere in time" and "The Seventh Son..." in its progressive leanings. The songs are a logical evolution from the previous album but the renewed chemistry of the band, along with Kevin Shirley's "in-your-face" production, help confer these songs the spark that Virtual XI desperately lacked. The fact that Shirley convinced the band to record the material live in the studio, a first in Iron Maiden's history, is pivotal, as the performances on this record pack more punch than anything else in the band's recorded output of the last ten years.

I won't hide the fact that I had some apprehension about this record. After all, how many reunions have actually lived up to the hype? However, I am relieved to see that Iron Maiden somehow avoided the obvious trap. They didn't follow people's expectations to the letter but they didn't disappoint either. They didn't do an about-face but they still took chances. They just did what they wanted to, on their own terms. As a result, this album is not about what Maiden should be, it is about where Maiden is at right now, artistically. And right now, they're on the top of the heap, kicking ass.

© 2000 - Christophe Chuvan