Iron Maiden - Powerslave
(Epic, 1984)

Iron Maiden's third album with the dark banshee Bruce Dickinson finds them prospecting more experimental metal battlefields, but still coming forth with some of the most passionate and sundering tunes in their catalogue. The momentum almost never falters, Powerslave scorches along with almost three-fourths of the album at the faster end of the spectrum. The record starts off with a fireball, Aces High, a no-holds barred speed metal strafer that features a truly classic eighties metal chorus. The mid-paced 2 Minutes To Midnight rocks powerfully with a punchy driving guitar riff. Also of note on this album is the three-chord bash of Flash Of The Blade, which at first draws you in with its seemingly undeceptive grinding, then hits you mid-song with a dash of excellent classical metal, a harmonizing dual-guitar run courtesy of Adrian Smith and Dave Murray. The title track employs Iron Maiden's signature metal gallop to great success, especially come chorus time, when excellent vocal harmonizing kicks the song into full overdrive.

Elsewhere, Rime Of The Ancient Mariner cruises on a slow building metal groove similar in style to Flight Of Icarus on The Number Of The Beast, but is dragged down by a near silent interlude that sinks the momentum like dead weight. Moreover, the idiotic rewording of the original Coleridge poem really bugs me, Iron Maiden almost pretending they wrote the whole backstory themselves. Many of the songs on Powerslave drag on occasionally far longer than expected, earnestly compelling me to press the NEXT button on my compact disc player. Be that as it may, this album is still a solid ball of metal that wreaks gothic havoc over any listener, be it fanatical metal fan or pop vomit comet.

Rating: 4/5