Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier (Universal)

Iron Maiden are creatures of habit. They know what they like and they don’t deviate: songs about politics and science fiction books, E to C to D chord progressions, and producers. Legendary metal producer Martin Birch produced eight consecutive albums for the band from 1980’s classic Killers (the last to feature singer Paul Di’Anno) to Fear Of The Dark (the supposed last album with Bruce Dickinson) in 1992. Then, Birch retired and left Maiden without someone to help bassist/visionary Steve Harris steer the ship. After two huge misses of albums, with Blaze Bayley on vocals and Nigel Green co-producing with Harris, the band went looking for a way to right the ship, as it had veered way off-course.

Along with bringing Bruce Dickinson and classic-era guitarist Adrian Smith back into the fold, Kevin “Caveman” Shirley finally settled in as Birch’s heir apparent. Shirley has taken the helm on every subsequent album since the reunion. The results have been mixed. Once you got past the euphoria of the reunion and really listened to 2000’s Brave New World, you were left with two fantastic tracks and a bunch of okay. Three years later, Dance Of Death really explored what the three guitar line-up could be capable of. It was an exciting time on the Iron Maiden front. A Matter Of Life And Death displayed Maiden funneling those three guitars into one to make a really beefy sound. They were as powerful as ever.

With The Final Frontier, Maiden follow their tried and true blueprint of the three aforementioned chords and triplet-heavy riffs. It also amplifies the negative of Kevin Shirley’s production and mixing. The album, like the last three, is too slick. This is, undoubtedly, what Steve Harris wanted because Birch-produced albums didn’t sound like this. There was an air of mystery and recklessness to those old albums but now we hear everything just perfectly. Blame Shirley, blame Harris, blame Pro Tools, the result is the same. This time, the songs just aren’t as good. The guitar solos are as good as ever but, like A Brave New World, it seems the concept of the album is too big for the songs to measure up. There’s plenty of long and arduous songs like there has always been but they are mostly repetitive and not incredibly interesting. Even the Smith/Dickinson/Harris compositions that I am usually so fond of don’t quite measure up. Don’t get me wrong. This is still a pretty good album but there is nothing unforgettable here. Not since No Prayer For The Dying has there ever been a Maiden album (Bloze Badley albums notwithstanding) that I’m not sure that I need to hear again.

As a longtime Iron Maiden fan, I hope that this is not The Final Frontier. Even though they have gone where they have gone so many times before, it would be a sad footnote to think that they have run out of tricks.