Iron Maiden
Brave New World
(Sanctuary Records)

Opening with roiling high-end tremolo hits (Nicko McBrain’s drums sound like garbage cans they are so metallic) of “The Wicker Man,” is a reissue of Iron Maiden’s 12^th studio album, Brave New World.

Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith came back to the band to make Maiden a solid six-piece hard-rocking outfit once again and here it shows.

After a rather pretty slow picked guitar opening, the band hits hard (again with very high-end tremolo-y sound) with their second tune, “Ghost of the Navigator,” singer Dickinson having fun with the echo on his strong voice here. “Brave New World,” has got some of the best earliest light and shade of this albums dynamics, a chunky heavy prog work out, while main songwriter of the band here Steve Harris gets some cool fun chording in at the beginning of “Blood Brothers,” the only tune here he wrote by himself. With strings and keeping itself contained to it’s slightly classical leanings, it is the best tune here for me.

“Dream Of Mirrors,” has got some nice studied, sedate quiet guitar noodling and when it takes off about at the six minute mark, it is welcomed, and again Dickinson is kicking things out of the park with his fantastic string vocal. It’s another stand out tune.

“The Fallen Angel,” and “The Nomad,” are classic hard-hitting chunky Maiden.

Brave New World is this band at their best form, delivering what we expect from this institution of hard rock. It’s good to hear it again.