Year Of Metal #030: Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden
I can remember seeing Iron Maiden live at Leeds Festival 2005 and being essentially nonplussed. I got the idea of it - classic heavy metal, doesn’t take itself too seriously, sort of fun. They put on a show and give you value for money, but the whole thing was a bit lacking for me.
That’s essentially my feeling about their 1980 self-titled debut LP which, I’m surprised to learn, doesn’t feature iconic singer, pilot, and Brexit voter-then-regretter Bruce Dickinson. The chap he replaced, Paul Di'Anno, is perfectly fine across the album, but maybe lacks the showmanship and swagger that would later tip them into superstardom. A couple of these songs are quality and everyone brings the thunder, but I found myself at a bit of a disconnect more often than not.
Starting with the good stuff, the epic “Phantom Of The Opera” is a total blast. The melody latching onto the bass and guitar riff over the stop-start drums is a cool effect, and the song is structured brilliantly. The techy, disorienting first couple of minutes are followed with a skippy little riff and operatic vocals, followed by one of the record’s best solos. Maiden then pack in another three or four turns before the song’s up. It’s in keeping of the high camp inherent in its inspirational source material (though the album predates AL Webber’s smash musical by six years).
The following instrumental, “Transylvania”, sticks with the spooky theme to great effect. The lurching nature of some of the riffs dates the song, but not in a bad way, rather in a “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore” fashion. Despite presumably having a solid budget, there’s a nice scrappy sound to the record, especially the rather ragged guitars which often sound like they’re being choked. “Strange World” is a more than solid effort, too, a bluesy outlier on Iron Maiden. I’m particularly keen on Dennis Stratton’s solo here. It’s sweeping, evocative, and thoughtful, in the vein of a Gary Moore or one of these classic British gunslingers.
And it’s that thoughtfulness I feel is lacking elsewhere on the album. A track like “Prowler” obviously isn’t supposed to be subtle or intellectually minded, but it goes so far as to seem thrown together. The solo’s launched just to have one, and while the sharpness of it is in keeping with the aggressive energy of the track, it fundamentally doesn’t sound very good. The same is true for “Remember Tomorrow”, a similarly ramshackle tune that doesn’t have the up tempo passion that “Prowler” can at least boast.
Closer “Iron Maiden” is the only track I knew going in, and there’s obviously a charm to a band having a self-titled song on a self-titled album. It’s got an impeccable chorus, a real once-heard-always-remembered job, but when they’re not working the chorus, it’s all over the place: forgettable verses, weird blobs of bass, odd moment-sapping passages where the metre changes or the drums drop out.
Maiden feel to me an exercise in marketing and longevity as much as anything else. They’ve got Eddie the zombie, they’ve been going for ages, people generally feel a lot of good will towards them. Fair play I suppose, but this doesn’t feel like a classic to me, just a quite old album from a band who you can still go and see live if you want.
