BRAVE NEW WORLD

Brave New World is the twelfth full-length studio album by UK heavy metal act Iron Maiden. After two very disappointing albums in The X-Factor (1995) and Virtual XI (1998) ( the latter didn´t reach the million copies sold mark which was the first time in the band´s history) with lead singer Blaze Bayley manning the microphone. In February 1999, Blaze Bayley left the band by mutual consent and Iron Maiden announced the return of lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson and maybe even more surprisingly guitarist Adrian Smith. As there where no further departures from Iron Maiden they now had three guitarists in the lineup. Iron Maiden embarked on a hugely successful re-union tour called The Ed Hunter Tour before going into the studio to record Brave New World. The album is hailed by many critics as a triumphant return to form.

After Blaze Bayley´s weak vocal contributions to the two previous Iron Maiden albums it´s such a treat to hear Bruce Dickinson sing on an Iron Maiden album again. The music on Brave New World hasn´t changed much from those two albums though and IMO it´s actually one of the weaker efforts by the band. The next two albums Dance of Death (2003) and A Matter of Life and Death (2003) are much more exciting and well executed IMO. There are a few songs that stand out as being above average on the album and that´s Ghost of the Navigator and the epic The Nomad. The rest are not bad. The songs are just pretty average run of the mill Iron Maiden songs. I´m generally not too impressed with the quality of the songwriting on the album though. What saves the album is as always the impeccable and enthusiastic musicianship. The production is a bit flat and it doesn´t help on my already negative impression of the album.

While I wildy applauded the return of Bruce Dickinson to Iron Maiden´s lineup back then I have never been too impressed by Brave New World. Not back then and not now. A 2.5 - 3 star rating is deserved. I´ll recommend their next two releases anyday over this one.