Rocker (feedbot)
Platinum Member
No comeback in metal was as welcome as Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith’s jubilant return to their rightful places in Iron Maiden back in 2000 with the release of the band’s triumphant twelfth album ‘Brave New World’. After the 90’s saw the band stumble and meander with the two, let’s face it, half-baked Blaze Bayley fronted albums, ‘Brave New World’ would see the heavy metal stalwarts embark on a successful and creative second chapter to match and even surpass their 80s heyday. ‘Brave New World’ was of course supported by a gigantic world tour, and the creative juices of this new era continued to flow with the release of 2003’s equally impressive ‘Dance Of Death’. Ignoring that album’s iffy “free CD-Rom” vibes cover art, inside lay some of the most varied creative choices of the band’s career thus far, including the band’s first fully acoustic track ‘Journeyman’ and a debut writing credit for longtime drummer Nikko McBrain on the propulsive and anthemic ‘New Frontier’. Compared to ‘Brave New World’, ‘Dance Of Death’ also veered a little further into the band’s proggier leanings, on tracks such as the brooding epic ‘Paschendale’ and the celebrated title track. It’s in these tracks that the seeds were sown for what would blossom on the band’s fourteenth release, ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’.
The subject of war has always been fertile ground for metal bands and Maiden themselves are no stranger to this, with many of their most well known tracks taking inspiration from historical events such as the Crimean War (‘The Trooper’), World War II (‘Where Eagles Dare’, ‘Aces High’) and the cold war (‘2 Minutes To Midnight’) but with ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ the band would focus on these themes exclusively, resulting in an album that eschews the flag waving bombastic bluster of warfare and instead hones in on the grim human cost of war and the futility of combative violence itself.
A fertile writing period for the band, ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ was recorded quickly too, with many of the first unmastered takes making the final cut. Indeed, the decision to not master the album was something the band felt aligned with the organic nature of the writing and recording process, an approach befitting the album’s subject matter. But whilst the production may have been a bit more back to basics in approach, the songwriting certainly wasn’t. It’s a long album (just over 70 minutes) but none of the tracks outstay their welcome, every song feels well developed, thought out and assembled. Every band member is locked in too, with Dickinson in particular laying down some of the most impassioned vocals of his career, particular on the balladic ‘Out Of The Shadows’, anthemic ‘These Colours Don’t Run’ and hard rocking epic ‘The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg’. In the album’s heavier passages, the guitars feel crunchy and thick too,
With the exception of the short and sweet singalong opener ‘Different World’, this is an album entirely comprised of songs ranging from five to nine minutes long, tracks that build slowly and have a much more of a progressive feel to them. The longer, drawn out nature of these compositions only adds to the heavy nature of the album’s themes, with some of the tracks feeling almost claustrophobic in their gloom. ‘The Longest Day’ (named after the 1962 John Wayne WWII epic) paints an understandably bleak picture of the Normandy landings, as Dickinson, in the song’s menacing verses laments “The enemy coast dawning grey with scud/These wretched souls, puking, shaking fear/To take a bullet for who sent them here”. This darkness prevails on the disarmingly anthemic ‘For The Greater Good Of God’, a song which questions religions’ role in war, as Dickinson’s soldier character pleads “Tell me now what life is/Tell me now what love is”. The bleak tone is carried throughout the entire album, right until the final lines of epic closer ‘The Legacy’ where the track’s narrator, speaking of the orchestrators of war, concedes “Do you think that they care? They benefit from death and pain and despair”. Though not a concept album,’ A Matter Of Life And Death’ is as close as the band have ever come to making one, so interlinked are the tracks and subject matter. The album’s artwork too is similarly bleak, with the familiar face of Eddie facing the viewer, astride a tank, gun aloft as an army of skeleton soldiers stagger towards us amongst a burnt, war torn, leaden skied landscape.
In a recent interview, Nikko McBrain proclaimed ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ to be his all time favourite Iron Maiden album (his drumming absolute shines throughout, bolstered by that unfussy production) and Bruce Dickinson has spoken nothing but fondly of it through the years. They chose to play it live in its entirety for a reason – these are songs the band believe in and are proud of. With fans, it still often remains somewhat of a polarising album, with its detractors finding the overall mood of the album too dour for their tastes especially in comparison to Maiden’s more tonally varied albums from the 1980s. What is without doubt however is that ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ is a singular and standout album in an already teeming-with-quality back catalogue filled to the brim with classics. It’s the Iron Maiden album with the clearest vision and execution.
This is Maiden unfiltered, dark and focussed, a band nearly three decades into their career at the absolute peak of their songwriting powers.
ADAM FIRTH
The subject of war has always been fertile ground for metal bands and Maiden themselves are no stranger to this, with many of their most well known tracks taking inspiration from historical events such as the Crimean War (‘The Trooper’), World War II (‘Where Eagles Dare’, ‘Aces High’) and the cold war (‘2 Minutes To Midnight’) but with ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ the band would focus on these themes exclusively, resulting in an album that eschews the flag waving bombastic bluster of warfare and instead hones in on the grim human cost of war and the futility of combative violence itself.
A fertile writing period for the band, ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ was recorded quickly too, with many of the first unmastered takes making the final cut. Indeed, the decision to not master the album was something the band felt aligned with the organic nature of the writing and recording process, an approach befitting the album’s subject matter. But whilst the production may have been a bit more back to basics in approach, the songwriting certainly wasn’t. It’s a long album (just over 70 minutes) but none of the tracks outstay their welcome, every song feels well developed, thought out and assembled. Every band member is locked in too, with Dickinson in particular laying down some of the most impassioned vocals of his career, particular on the balladic ‘Out Of The Shadows’, anthemic ‘These Colours Don’t Run’ and hard rocking epic ‘The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg’. In the album’s heavier passages, the guitars feel crunchy and thick too,
With the exception of the short and sweet singalong opener ‘Different World’, this is an album entirely comprised of songs ranging from five to nine minutes long, tracks that build slowly and have a much more of a progressive feel to them. The longer, drawn out nature of these compositions only adds to the heavy nature of the album’s themes, with some of the tracks feeling almost claustrophobic in their gloom. ‘The Longest Day’ (named after the 1962 John Wayne WWII epic) paints an understandably bleak picture of the Normandy landings, as Dickinson, in the song’s menacing verses laments “The enemy coast dawning grey with scud/These wretched souls, puking, shaking fear/To take a bullet for who sent them here”. This darkness prevails on the disarmingly anthemic ‘For The Greater Good Of God’, a song which questions religions’ role in war, as Dickinson’s soldier character pleads “Tell me now what life is/Tell me now what love is”. The bleak tone is carried throughout the entire album, right until the final lines of epic closer ‘The Legacy’ where the track’s narrator, speaking of the orchestrators of war, concedes “Do you think that they care? They benefit from death and pain and despair”. Though not a concept album,’ A Matter Of Life And Death’ is as close as the band have ever come to making one, so interlinked are the tracks and subject matter. The album’s artwork too is similarly bleak, with the familiar face of Eddie facing the viewer, astride a tank, gun aloft as an army of skeleton soldiers stagger towards us amongst a burnt, war torn, leaden skied landscape.
In a recent interview, Nikko McBrain proclaimed ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ to be his all time favourite Iron Maiden album (his drumming absolute shines throughout, bolstered by that unfussy production) and Bruce Dickinson has spoken nothing but fondly of it through the years. They chose to play it live in its entirety for a reason – these are songs the band believe in and are proud of. With fans, it still often remains somewhat of a polarising album, with its detractors finding the overall mood of the album too dour for their tastes especially in comparison to Maiden’s more tonally varied albums from the 1980s. What is without doubt however is that ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ is a singular and standout album in an already teeming-with-quality back catalogue filled to the brim with classics. It’s the Iron Maiden album with the clearest vision and execution.
This is Maiden unfiltered, dark and focussed, a band nearly three decades into their career at the absolute peak of their songwriting powers.
ADAM FIRTH