Iron Maiden
The Book Of Souls

I never cease to admire the versatility of Bruce Dickinson! Fencing rank, a successful career in a rock band, has a pilot license and even piloted a Boeing 757, subsequently receiving the captain position in 2007. And in 1997, he sang along with the opera diva Montserrat Caballe, “Bohemian Rhapsody” Queen, which was recorded for her album “Friends for Life”. Caballe will not sing with anyone. Undoubtedly a gifted person. After 2010, my interest in Iron Maiden began to subside a bit, as the album “The Final Frontier” didn't really impress me. Some of the songs on it turned out to be not very successful and a bit long. Of all the Iron Maiden albums that came out after 1988, I was really impressed only with 2006's “A Matter of Life and Death”. Everything suited me on it. And here in 2015 the album "Book of Souls" is released. At first I frowned when I found out that the album was double and that it had songs lasting 8 minutes or more. "How long to! Is it really impossible to record songs shorter? ”I thought. However, in 2016, I got acquainted with him. I was pleasantly shocked. Such a strong impression rarely visited me, although I listened to a lot of good and just good music. Except when listening to some albums of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Queen, Judas Priest, Rainbow, Accept, Dio, Megadeth, as well as “Resurrection” by Halford (in one song of which, by the way, you can hear Dickinson singing). On “The Book of Souls” everything worked out harmoniously, despite the length of the songs. Each instrumental part is perfectly designed. The game of guitarists is beyond praise, plus competent synthesizer inserts in the background, which is very pleased. Well, Bruce's vocals are beautiful as always! I especially liked the first part of the album, which has “Speed ​​of Light”, “The Red and the Black”, “When the River Runs Deep” and the title song. Very good songs! On the second half of the album, the most striking things are, perhaps, “Shadows of the Valley” and “Empire of the Clouds,” which Dickinson composed alone. After listening to “The Book of Souls” I began to relate to Iron Maiden much warmer than before, and took a fresh look at what the band recorded with Bruce on vocals in the 80s. As for the design of the album cover, the idea of ​​making Eddie a savage seems to me not very successful. However, Eddie himself is somehow not very happy with me - I am indifferent to mascot groups. In my opinion, Maiden had a successful design only once - on “The Number of the Beast”. But, since the musical material (for my taste) of the Book of Souls is beyond praise, you can give up on Eddie Papuan. The group opened a second wind ...