‘Progressive’, was the answer my friend of High Fidelity Records answered. And I couldn’t believe it. How could Iron Maiden start to write progressive songs? I was shocked and ran to my home to have myself at least three rehearsal sessions. And of course my friend was wrong, because Iron Maiden still sounds the same. Fortunately, with A Matter of Life and Death there are some differences with the past.

 

The sound of the record comes closest towards the Brave New World album from 2000 with the comment that the three guitars are mixed together in a way that they’re easy to distinguish from each other. Opener ‘Different World’ is predictably short followed by two interesting longer songs where the changes in song structure must please the fans and keep them interested.

 

My personal favorite ‘The Pilgrim’ has a got a monstrous guitar riff which would do a great job live and a fine rhythm. From this, the cd turns out to be a perfect combination of all the aspects of Iron Maiden and forms one big musical adventure, except for ‘Out of the Shadows’ which could have had some more 'pepper up the ass'. Bruce has done a tremendous job, the war between the guitars is a must for the ears and I even reckon some ‘ooo ooo ooo’s’ to sing along like in ‘Fear of the Dark’.

 

On the other hand, this album is so typical Iron Maiden in 2006 that the excitement has gone a little. Also, every characteristic you could come up with has been included in this album. So, the endless intros and outros become a bit boring, because in the end, it’s all about the action isn’t it?

 

Fortunately, the songwriting is well enough to keep you close to your cd player for the entire 72 minutes. And that’s exactly what we want. We don’t want a progressive band that sounds totally different all of a sudden. We want a band that reminds us of their previous work, maybe with a better production. And that’s what we’ve got. Not a masterpiece but a confirmation that Maiden is still alive, and kicking ass!