SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON

"Seven deadly sins, seven ways to win, seven holy paths to hell..."

Fourth album with the classic line-up, unfortunately the last one... The band here moved to a more classic sound, brighter, heavier. The production is still top quality, as well as the artwork (I love the bright icy world painted on the cover).

"Moonchild" is a strong opener with heavy riffs and powerful vocals. "Infinite Dreams" has the progressive feeling of those Maiden songs that grow with time - quiet intro, mellow first part, mid paced main theme, fast paced instrumental interlude. "Can I Play With Madness" is the first Maiden hit I saw on TV - at that point classic heavy metal (Iron Maiden, AC/DC) was starting to produce albums ranked in musical charts, and songs like this one contributed to bring classic metal to the masses. "The Evil That Men Do" is another classic Maiden hit. The title track "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son" is the centerpiece of the album - epic, dark, with awesome guitar work and the added synth (remarkable on the mid part of the song where Bruce recites spoken words). "The Prophecy" sees Dave Murray makes some contribution to the songwriting again with a classic mellow intro/heavy main theme structured song, the bonus here being the beautiful acoustic outro. The last two songs "The Clairvoyant" and "Only The Good Die Young" are classic heavy metal songs again.

Rating: 90/100 (5 stars)