(WARNING: Below are tour spoilers)

I remember the weekend I picked this album up. It was early September and I picked up both this one and Bad Magic, the final album from Motörhead. Truth be told, I was a little more excited to listen to Bad Magic and see how it fared because Iron Maiden albums never disappoint!

I still have eerily vivid flashbacks of seeing If Eternity Should Fail (the opening track) live at the opening night of The Book of Souls Tour in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Seeing the lights dim and hearing the keyboard intro blare over the PA all with Bruce standing over the smoking cauldron was spellbinding. It was as magical as I envisioned it being the first time listening to this album. I’ve put off doing this review for some time because the new album hype took a lot longer to wear off than I would’ve thought. I remember back in June when I first read the news of the new album and I thought to myself, “not one, not two, but three songs over ten minutes? Sign me up!”. I called so many of my friends to tell them about the new album. I was excited to hear this album, and it exceeded my every expectation.

The Book of Souls is a long listen. At 92 minutes, this is the longest studio album they’ve ever done. While the album is two discs (and people love comparing and contrasting disc one to disc two) it has to be experienced as one cohesive listen. The Book of Souls is an aggressive album. This fact is pretty well cemented here by the rockers like Speed of Light (which kicked so much ass live) and Death or Glory. They’re short, punchy, and not at all progressive. These tracks hearken back to the golden days of Piece of Mind and Powerslave (two of the greatest heavy metal albums of all time) and that’s really a great thing. It’s not like the band is trying too hard to throwback to the golden era of Maiden, instead tracks like those play out like old Maiden meeting new Maiden. While the album has its share of Adrian Smith co-written bone shakers, there’s plenty of progressive Iron Maiden on this album. It actually shows pretty early with track 3 The Great Unknown, an excellent progressive Iron Maiden song. After The Great Unknown, Iron Maiden kinda alternates between these rockers that sound like tried and true, blue blood Maiden and progressive epics. Also, the production definitely helps all of the songs here. It helps to accent the aggressive, punchy side of the album while also added an atmospheric touch to the longer, more progressive tracks. The production I’d say is more of that muddy Kevin ‘Caveman’ Shirley/Steve Harris collaboration we Maiden fans have gotten used to on the past two albums or so. Overall, disc one is pretty aggressive what with tracks like If Eternity Should Fail, Speed of Light, and the title track, The Book of Souls, while disc two is much more experimental.

Disc two has the Bruce Dickinson masterstroke Empire of the Clouds, which clocks in at just over 18 minutes. You don’t need to be an Iron Maiden fan to know that that is their longest song thus far in their career. When I first heard the album, I thought the closer was rather bloated, and was an improper way to finish out the album. Now my attitude towards the song has changed, but remnants of my original opinion remain. I honestly do think the song is rather forced and I am glad they didn’t play it live. That being said, there are some pretty badass parts of the song and there’s a lot of really nice melodies in there too. It’s really no surprise to me that many Iron Maiden fans view this as their best track ever. It’s really something every Iron Maiden fan should hear once in their life.

The progressive tendencies of disc two aren’t all manifested in the finale of Empire of the Clouds. Shadows of the Valley, track 8 and the 2nd song on disc two, is a highly underrated Iron Maiden song, and I think it’s one of their best from the 2000’s.

“Into the valley of death, fear no evil.

We will go forward no matter the cost!

Into the valley of death follow me now,

Bring me your souls and I’ll make it our last.”

Some awesome solos in that one too, like the first one played by Janick Gers. That one may as well be my favorite solo from him:

I still can’t believe how unhinged the solos are on this album, all of them totally rip! I want to focus for a bit on the songwriting first before talking too much of the performances here. The Book of Souls features above average songwriting for reunion era Maiden. I think the songwriting is the strongest on the disc one. There’s an excellent balance created between ragers like If Eternity Should Fail and Speed of Light and the 10+ minute epics The Book of Souls and The Red and the Black. The balance is kinda skewed on disc two mainly because of the 18 minute closer. I find that disc one really has outsanding pacing while disc two drags pretty hard. That being said, disc two does house two of my favorite reunion era Maiden songs, Shadows of the Valley and The Man of Sorrows (I would of killed to have seen The Man of Sorrows live!). Also, Adrian Smith’s solo in The Man of Sorrows is god-like, simply amazing.

The performances from everyone here, especially the Three Amigos, are really top notch. I found Adrian Smith, Dave Murray, and Janick Gers to all be in top form on this album. The Book of Souls rivals Powerslave for Iron Maiden’s greatest guitarwork ever. Seriously, just look at The Man of Sorrows or The Red and the Black and tell me those aren’t the greatest guitar lines any of the three have ever laid down. Bruce’s vocal work here can be most compared to his work on A Matter of Life and Death, his voice comes off as deep and powerful. He really drives the epics on the album too. Now, I would’ve liked to have seen a little more experimentation from Steve Harris and Nicko McBrain; those two play it pretty safe throughout the whole album. While no member of Iron Maiden is really being affected or slowed down by their age (in fact, these guys are without a doubt playing better than any other group of 50 year olds I can think of!), you can tell Nicko has been aging quite a bit. Everyone else on the album proves to have a lot of vigor and youthful energy while Nicko’s effort is a little more laid back. Again, he’s not dragging the band, but he’s not taking risks with his playing like he did on A Matter of Life and Death or Brave New World. Overall, overjoyed with Iron Maiden’s pretty stellar performance on the Book of Souls.

The Verdict

Iron Maiden’s fifth reunion era effort proves to be quite the rocking affair. While Bruce’s cancer diagnosis scared the heavy metal world at first, he sounds better (and clearer) than ever here; his vocal work is insanely strong on The Book of Souls. The Book of Souls also features the most daring Iron Maiden guitarwork to date! The riffs and solos are so tight and just memorizing. While I believe both Brave New World and A Matter of Life and Death have a slight edge over this one, The Book of Souls is Iron Maiden’s most inspired effort to date. Adventurous, driving, and atmospheric, The Book of Souls will not disappoint fans of Iron Maiden and heavy metal alike.