Good review. I'm not sure I fully agree with you though (but then again, that would be rather boring), haha.

I don't think it's boring or lacking at all. I just accept the fact that Maiden is more of a Prog Rock band now than a Metal band. The band who wrote "Wrathchild", "Run To The Hills" and "Be Quick Or Be Dead" is gone. In it's place are 6 seasoned musicians playing music that pleases them. Harris has a well-documented love of 70s Prog and they were always heavily influenced by Thin Lizzy and UFO.

Tonally, Maiden has never had the heaviest guitar tone, and with the exception of Somewhere In Time, have usually employed a natural amp tone more than a hopped up "Metal" tone. In the current times with all the 7-string guitars and hot-rodded, computerized tones Maiden still goes for a natural, warm sound. This alone causes them to not sound necessarily "heavy" by today's standards.

For my money, Bruce is singing very well, the band is super tight, and I like Prog so, all things considered, I think it's a very good album.

I am loving this album!!!!!!!! Totally top 5 or top 3 Maiden for me!!!! Every song is great. As PRD said, it doesn't FEEL like an almost 80 minute album

Actually I just put this on to listen to it after reading this. I still feel the same. Good stuff

Another good review. I like prog stuff so I also dig this album quite a bit, and is more or less what I expected from them. I like every song on the album. I think they are all strong. Though there have been several times where I start the album from the middle rather than the beginning just to give those songs a good listen.

I feel the first 3 songs are the strongest on the album, the first song while I love it, I feel like you could cut it into 2 seperate tracks.

The more I listen the more it grabs me which is pretty par for the recent Maiden albums.

Im still spinning it, as when I put it up on my site Im clear on how i feel about this album

Just got it today. Haven't listened yet. Looking forward to doing so.

I'm a casual Maiden fan, but I'm enjoying this album more than anything they've done since the reunion. I don't find the prog-influence to be boring at all (and I'm not even a prog fan!). I listened to this album yesterday for the first time and listened to it back to back. Sure, I wish it was more like their '80s heavy metal, but it's still good to my ears.

I didnt know you could split tracks on Itunes

Interesting.....

yea if you right click on the track you want to split and hit get info. Then click on the options tab. Then go to the bottom where it says start time and just figure out where you want the track to start. Its pretty easy.

OOooooo looks like I know what im doing this weekend with Itunes hehehe

It's luke-warm with me right now, as was their last one. I don't like all of the super-long songs. 5 songs over (some well over ) 8 minutes plus 3 more from 5:52-7:48.

I'll give it a few spins to be fair, but first listen it's so-so for me.

It's a shame because I simply love this band overall, and I want to like their new stuff.

I'm still digesting this but I do agree on 1 point the old Iron Maiden has left and yes to me they do sound more proghish. But I don't think they are totally prog thru the whole cd it is complicated to do what they do.

They are older so they have slowed down a bit on their heaviness IMO.

Wargod51

Im gonna take back the comment saying the first 3 songs were the strongest , Its the first 4 IMO

I like the album, and I plan to get at least 2 more Iron Maiden albums when finances permit (Somewhere in Time & Brave New World)

Just picked this up today and I like what I hear so far(the first 3 songs)

Chewie I love your red foreman pic heh

I don't think the songs are too long, there are just too many of them. A CD doesn't need to be filled to capacity. Chop off a couple tracks, get the running time down to around 60 minutes or less. That's plenty for a single album, the mind starts to wander after 50 minutes or so.

Back to LP length, that's the way to go.