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Brave New World

Iron Maiden - Brave New World Audio CD

A fair review of the Iron Maiden "Brave New World" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Iron Maiden reviews here, or go back to the Iron Maiden tabs.

Band: Iron Maiden
Title: Brave New World
Rating:

Release Date: 2000-05-30
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Wicker Man 2: Ghost of the Navigator 3: Brave New World 4: Blood Brothers 5: Mercenary 6: Dream of Mirrors 7: Fallen Angel 8: Nomad 9: Out of the Silent Planet 10: Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Mediocre Iron Maiden is still better than most stuff out there
I've recently dug out my older Maiden albums and I was curious where the latest incarnation has taken them. I really wanted to like this disc more. Given that several reviewers compared this disc to "Seventh Son", "Brave New World" made logical sense.

The album starts off strong enough, "The Wicker Man" is a solid track that I find myself liking more and more on repeated listening. It hold up well in the Maiden catalogue. "Ghost of the Navigator" begins fairly well and overall its a strong song however a trend that will continue for the rest of the album becomes apparent: The constant repetition of the chorus and of the instruments. In Ghost, its not too bad.

By the time we finish track 3, I'm beginning to have a hard time listening to the full songs. In fact its not until track 9, "Brave New World" that another mostly solid, beginning to end song is encountered.

This isn't to say the album is bad, it just gets boring. I'd love to see a producer take these tracks, edit them down by about 1 to 3 minutes each and put that out. In other words, "Brave New World" needs better song editing. Had that been here, this may have been an awesome album. Instead we have two nine minute songs of which 4 minutes (at least) of each song feels like listening to 30 second sound loop.

If you are a Maiden fan from the 80s and looking to see what they are doing now, I'd suggest skipping this album and find one of the myriad of greatest hits that is heavy on the new stuff ("Wicker Man", "Fear of the Dark", etc). However if you have a few dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you can spend the money on a lot worse things. .

BRAVE NEW COME BACK!!!
Highly recommended!!. If you were old enough to remember when Paul DiAnno sang on Maiden, Bruce was the perfect choice to replace it in the sake of givin' it more projection and an epic measure to the band, then came Blaze 2 steps back for them, but then again, Bruce makes the greatest come back in metal history!! If you want to get swept away by awesome musicianship, great vocals and energy, look no further this CD will revive your love for Maiden, there's no better way to express the quality of this CD, you'll get great sound, a great album cover, a great album theme, I suggest you to get this CD after you get Number of the Beast and Powerslave, is one of the greatest CD ever put together for the come back of one of the greatest vocalist in heavy metal hystory.

Where is the energy?
The album is a bit too relaxed, the guitar riffs are not nearly as fast, loud, or energetic as they once were. The title sums it up nicely. Even the drums seem a bit subdued. Bruce only reaches about half his range on this album, which is so seriously weird. It's almost as if someone snuck Xanax into everyone's lunch and they went and recorded an album. Also, a lot of the songs seem to be very disjointed, and go from one melody to an entirely different one that doesn't even mesh at all, making some of these songs seem like a mash up of ideas tossed around every twenty seconds. I don't know what else to say, it has little moments of being catchy, but lost in the mishmash.

Not what they used to be.
Brave New World is your typical post 80's Maiden album which I would describe as good,but not great and this is not Iron Maiden the way I remembered them when I first became a fan. If you buy this album expecting to hear songs that sound like Run to the Hills,The Trooper,Two Minutes to Midnight and Wasted Years,then you better break out your old albums because this isn't going to sound like that. I miss the good ol days.

Gone are the trademark neo classical guitar riffs which were a hallmark of their early work. The songwriting,for the most part is pretty lame but there are few good ones like the first two songs, Wicker Man and Ghost of the Navigator which had some fast guitar riffs. After that,it drops off and doesn't get your attention again until Mercenary,Fallen Angel and Out of the Silent Planet which has a catchy chorus more than anything else. Blood Brothers was weak and other songs were way too long and sounded boring and made me want to skip to the next track. Nicko McBrain's drumming was impressive and was one of the few high points of the album. It sounds like he has a new drum kit.

Brave New World is a welcome return for singer Bruce Dickinson who sounded great but this is not Maiden's best work by any means. It sounded better than their 90's albums but does not measure up to their classic 80's albums which were more aggressive and artistic sounding and was by far,their best work. If you long for the good ol days of Bruce and Co. you might want to pass on this one.

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amazing
wiker man: a great song very catchy and amazing drumming by nicko ( if you dont know he only uses one bass peadal)

2. Ok to start off I am a relativly new fan to maiden but I now own alittle over half of their studio diskography for the review i will go track by track

1. ghost of navigator: great way to keep the album going it took awhile but I finaly started to like this song

3. brave new world: ah the perfect title song everything about this song is likeable from the soft beging the the huge chorus to the awesome solos

4. blood brothers: alittle bit of a let down after the previous three songs but still a great song no less

5. The mercenery: one of my favorites of the album as one reviewer said bruce does repet "show them no fear show them no pain" but it still sounds great.

6. dream of mirrors: the epic awesome song of the album and a great song to think to.

7. the fallen angel: the heavest song on the album just dark overall

8. the nomad: in my oppion the weekest song of the album just sompthing about the song that isnt the greatness of the others

9. out of the silent planet: one of my two personal favorites on the album the song has a almost perfect vocal performence from bruce and great solos from the guitarests.

10. the thin line between love and hate: the other favorite on the album a slower song but just butiful and almost loving

up the irons!!!.

You can see a complete list of all Iron Maiden discography, or go back to the Iron Maiden tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.