Review Summary: A great compilation album. While, some songs shouldn't of been on here and others that weren't included deserved to be, it's a great album full of hits and fantastic music.
The Backstory
Iron Maiden is, without saying, one of the greatest Metal bands in the history of music. They started their career by topping the charts with their self-titled and exploded onto the Metal scene with 1982's
Number of the Beast. Since they started, despite a couple lineup changes, they have continued to release metal classics over the years. This compilation album tries to gather all the greatest songs from all of said metal classics. Does it succeed? Read the rest of the review and find out.
The Good
Iron Maiden have been known over the years for their powerful screaming vocals and galloping guitar riffs. The guitar has also been fantastic and this album is no exception. The double attack of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith succeed greatly in creating catchy riffs and playing fret burning solos. The guitar especially shines in songs such as
Two Minutes to Midnight and
Run to the Hills. The newly added guitarist Janick Gers also does a good job at adding depth to the songs like
Fear of the Dark.
Nicko McBrain, while no John Bonham, also do a fantastic job of keeping the rhythm and adding more chunk to the band's already galloping guitar. The drums don't really go any farther than that though. The bass is not always very present, but never gets outshadowed. Steve Harris makes sure that his presence is known and has an important role in songs such as
The Clairvoyant.
The last band member, Bruce Dickinson, is one of the most talented metal singers ever to exist within the genre. His screaming vocals add to the sound that
is Iron Maiden. He is however, not featured on one song on this album, which is
Man on the Edge. Although Bruce is not featured in this song because he was out pursuing a solo career, the song is still good and listenable.
Since this is a greatest hits album, all of the songs, including classics like
Number of the Beast, The Trooper, and
Flight of Icarus, are supposed to be good. Some songs however, fall short and shouldn't have been included on this greatest hits collection. This brings us to...
The Bad
As I said before, this is a greatest hits album, everything is suppose to be good. However, some songs leave you wondering why they were included in a greatest hits collection. I'm talking about songs such as,
Holy Smoke a song with very strange and bad lyrics about how Christian programs are always asking for money. Another song that falls short is the tedious and generic
Infinite Dreams. It would be a good song to fill up space on a regular Maiden album, but just doesn't deserve to be on a greatest hits compilation.
While some songs don't deserve to be on this and still are, it puzzles me why some songs aren't on this. Songs like the epic
Hallowed Be Thy Name and the classic song
Powerslave. Another thing is, in contains no material from Maiden's first two efforts
Iron Maiden and
Killers. That means no
Phantom of the Opera, Iron Maiden, or
Wrathchild.
Overall
Overall, this is a great compilation album. While, some songs shouldn't of been on here and others that weren't included deserved to be, it's a great album full of hits and fantastic music.
4/5
