Like most of the human race, I naturally love Bruce Dickinson. So much so, I have never given any time to any of the Iron Maiden albums that did not include him. Perhaps I have been unfair to Steve Harris and the rest of Iron Maiden by being so loyally linked to Iron Maiden only when Bruce is present. Perhaps the early albums with Paul Di’Anno are great and I foolish never listened to them. Perhaps the two albums in the nineties with Blaze Bayley are great but I stubbornly abandoned Iron Maiden without Dickinson and missed out. Perhaps I am bad person because of this; I do not know.
What I do know is that Bruce Dickinson is the man; probably one of the top ten greatest front men of all time.
Freddy Mercury is clearly the greatest front man ever in case you were wondering.
In 1993, Dickinson left Iron Maiden to pursue his solo career, which I never followed. I guess as much as I love Bruce Dickinson without Steve Harris my interest in him is waned. In that time Harris and the boys would carry on, but to the opinion of most it was a lack luster time. With Bruce, it was not the same.
In the year 2000 Iron Maiden re-unites, and they release “Brave New World.” This act alone makes this album significant. However, this album is the ushering in of the modern era of Iron Maiden. A short two album gap of seven years without Dickinson and Smith, represents a time of limbo and the moment it ended, a new era began.
“Brave New World” is not my favorite Iron Maiden; in fact, it is not even close. The overall quality in my opinion is a little stunted, it was almost like Harris and the boys were re-learning how to be metal gods again, and the final product is missing that razor edge we need as metal fans. But in the end, songs like “Blood Brothers” and the title track, combined with the strong conclusion brought to us with “Out of the Silent Planet” and “The Thin Line Between Love & Hate” make it a very good album. I think the best effort is “Blood Brother,” and this song is the talking point of the day.
Honestly, “Blood Brothers” makes the album for me; it is the only song I would consider truly great off of “Brave New World.” It follows the title track, which is probably my second favorite song from the album, and it has pretty much has everything I want in a song. It is long, over seven minutes, and it takes it time to build itself up and presents all it’s unique sounds. The overlays of the guitars play nicely, despite there being four strings instruments all playing at once they never crowd or interrupt each other.
Then there is Bruce Dickinson. Dickinson was always a talented singer, but time had passed. He had performed on numerous Iron Maiden albums and he had toured constantly, and most vocalist after that series of endeavours would begin to lose some of their voice. I do not know when Dickinson decided to stop drinking alcohol altogether, but I believe it was fairly early on. The rationale being that Dickinson knew his voice would fade with time and the best to preserve his talent was to avoid bad habits that would have a harmful effective on the health and longevity of his singing voice, and I think these later albums in Iron Maiden’s discography and the continued high quality of Maiden’s live performance to this date. “Brave New World” holds some significance to me because this is not only a second era of Dickinson fronted Iron Maiden, but I also see it as the second era of Dickinson in general. He has maintained an absurd high level of performance very late into his career, and I see “Brave New World” as the beginning second great marathon.
One criticism, I once heard of the lyrics of Iron Maiden is repetitive choruses. It is true, Dickinson and Harris, and however else helps write the lyrics, often use a single sentence repeated four times, and there you go, that is the chorus. My song of the hour “Blood Brothers” is also guilty of this.
“We’re blood brothers.” x4
I understand this complaint, it does feel uninspired sometimes. An example of it being done in a way I do not appreciate is “Seventh son of a seventh son,” I love that song, but I do find I am burned out by the chorus by the end every time I listen to it. For “Blood Brothers” however I like the approach. Repeating “we’re blood brothers” comes out as a proudful declaration of union and togetherness. Like a warrior battle cry, we are in this together, we are blood brothers. The repetition this time feels appropriate. As brothers of battle should never forget their connection. Yeah, bad ass.
“Brave New World” is not Iron Maiden’s best album, and that is the general consensus. However, for all the reasons I have detailed above, I believe it should also be the consensus that “Brave New World” is a good album and very important to the legacy and careers of Iron Maiden and Bruce Dickinson and Maiden fans everywhere should be very grateful for it’s existence. Second eras are rare for bands. Iron Maiden is one of the few to have accomplished this and they started it with “Brave New World;” and on this album no song captures that metal spirit better than “Blood Brothers.” When I said earlier that the chorus of “we’re blood brothers” sounds like a declaration of unity, I think of it as Bruce singing about Iron Maiden as a whole. They are blood brothers and together they are Iron Maiden.
- King of Braves
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