POWERSLAVE

One of the great things about PA is that I can review albums that are not strictly prog, but would be of interest to proggers(Proto, Related). Of course on a metal site(like Metal Archives which I have yet to check out) I would give this album 5 stars. Powerslave is my favourite Maiden album. But this is not their proggiest effort. "Back In The Village" is almost filler here. "2 Minutes To Midnight" is a popular song but I never liked it very much. Up to this point in their career Maiden seemed equally influenced by punk and prog, yet remained 100% metal. But "The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" is IMO, one of the first prog-metal songs.

Almost 14 minutes of some of the greatest music you will hear from the 1980s. "Mariner" has great playing, great lyrics, great singing...well it's just great, really. I've always loved the part in the middle with the minimalistic bass and atmospheric guitar with Dickinson narrating. Some of the best guitar solos from this band can be found here. "Losfer Words"(get it? Lost For Words) is a great instrumental. I admit I'm not really familiar with anything the band did after Fear Of The Dark, but going by memory, I think this is the only instrumental Maiden did between 1980-92. "Aces High" is a classic metal song but not very proggy. "Flash Of The Blade" and "The Duellists" have great choruses but the rest of the two songs aren't quite as good.

The title track is the next proggiest thing to "Mariner". It's a great song. The album cover is my favourite of all Maiden albums. Anything to do with ancient Egypt is just super cool in my opinion. I like the fact that you can hear Steve Harris' bass clearly; on most '80s metal albums the bass usually gets buried under overdubbed guitars. I think he writes most of Maiden's lyrics, I'm not sure. But Powerslave has some of the best lyrics Maiden has to offer. This is nothing essential to a progger but every metalhead should have this album in their collection. 3 stars.