POWERSLAVE

Wow, what a stunning artwork! This must be top-notch middle-eastern heavy metal! Well, unfortunately not exactly....

"Powerslave" marks, for me, the transition from a pure, epic to a more prog-oriented metal. Thus, as for most transitional albums, it has both good and bad parts.

Good parts are tracks 1, 3, 7 and 8. "Aces High" is a powerful, typical MAIDEN opening, which shares some similarities with "Where Eagles Dare". "Losfer Words" is an aggressive instrumental track with interesting variations. However, the record highlight - and the main interest for proggers - are the Egyptian-like title track and the 13 minutes suite "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". These songs alone justifies the listen. Unfortunately, the rest of the album does not present the same quality and originality.

The other half of the album contains mostly what I consider as filler songs. "2 Minutes to Midnight" sounds rather flat, contrasting with the enthusiasm of the opening track. "Flash of the Blade" and "The Duellists" have strong intros, but afterwards becomes annoying and repetitive, missing at keeping interest. The worst moment of the album is undoubtedly "Back In The Village". This song may be one of their less inspired from the 80's. Compared to the epic tracks on the previous album "Piece of Mind", this is quite a contrast.

My least favorite 80's IRON MAIDEN album. Prog fans can give it a listen, but for them I'll rather recommend "Somewhere in Time", "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son", or even "The X-Factor".

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