EL DORADO

Around the world, legions of heavy metal fans salivated for the arrival of a new Iron Maiden opus. To reel the listeners in closer, this single was released. Despite being on the scene for thirty years, the band is still in great form, and the energy that had people fall in love witht eh band in the first place is still here in great dose, although it sounds like the band is still doing the same thing they were doing years ago.

First off, while the song is good, 'El Dorado' is not a proper choice for a single. Best described as a 'grower,' it is clear that even the band themselves realized this mistake after the fact, and did a video for the title track of 'The Final Frontier' instead. In any case, the single has convinced me to check out some of the other material on the record. Driven by their trademark guitar gallop and soaring 'air raid' vocals from Dickinson, a great riff and some sweet rhythm work makes this music really ring out to their earlier work as band.

Despite good songwriting and performance, 'El Dorado' will never be in the history books alongside real classics such as 'The Trooper' and 'Number Of The Beast.' For what it's worth however, Iron Maiden have proven that they still have what it takes to craft some great metal, and potentially even pull a few new fans into their midst.