While many great bands of the 80s, if they are still around, are well past their creative zenith, live off their reputation from their "glorious old times" and haven't really released anything relevant in years, some bands just keep getting better and better.
I am glad to say that Iron Maiden falls into the latter category. Especially after seeing them live in the mid 2000s, where they delivered a smooth and polished, but essentially unexciting best-of-show. You know, the sort of show you do before you retire.
In this context, The Book of Souls was quite a surprise. Not only that the band is still able to write exciting new material, they also made serious moves into progressive-metal territory. I think this mix is the magic ingredient of this album really: songs that work as well on an emotional level as on a technical, songwriting one as well.
Despite the majority of the songs being well over six minutes long (and three of them over ten), they are all varied, engaging, keeping the listener interested - and deliver quite some punch.
The most outstanding song of the album is without a doubt Empire of the Clouds. An 18-minute long epic on the tragic maiden voyage of the Airship R101, that perfectly builds up from a dreamy piano-melody into the thunderstorm that eventually crashed it down - all carried by Bruce Dickinson's brilliant vocals and lyrics.
And the best of all of this? They achieve all this without abandoning the character of the band. This is still Iron Maiden; the band that wrote The Number of the Beast, Fear of the Dark, The Trooper - you name it. The new songs fit stylistically perfectly to their old material. They are simply enhanced, have grown and matured into - I won't say perfection, but they are pretty damn close.
Listen closely, guys from Metallica: That's how it's done.
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