One person has already described this release as the musical equivalent of sucking champagne from a leper’s unwashed shoe. You might on the otherhand be more inclined to feel it is in fact like sucking leper juice from a champagne bottle. The choice is yours. It really depends on which side your bread is buttered. If, like me, you remember when Iron Maiden were here the first time around and not just some absurd and improbable blueprint for Spinal Tap, you’ll be surprised by the sheer single-mindedness of its compilers. This really is just about everything visual there is on record. And if tight leather pants and such other fetish fashion accessories is where you’re at, well your not going to be disappointed.
So what have we got? In a nutshell we have about 180 minutes of Bruce Dickinson looking intense and gurning like a good ‘un betwixt sequence after sequence of a fair quality street assortment of goblins, ghouls and reapers – but with titles like ‘Number Of The Beast’ , ‘Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter’ and ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’ you were hardly going to see anything by way of Spike Jonze, now were you? A dance of death? No, it just feels that way. Iron Maiden were never really a video band. And contrary to what most ‘metallers’, they’re neither that great to look at.
This probably isn’t the place to go into a lengthy discussion on the validity of heavy rock (but if you want a quick answer, there isn’t any validity) nor is it appropriate to comment on the unintended comic subtext of all this hokum. What is worth saying is that the graphic intro – whilst lengthy – is in fact spectacular , and so is the audio for that matter. What is disappointing though, is the inexpert and unimaginative low risk taking with the menus and ‘extras’ (some fairly spurious animated version of tracks and a discography). The remaining ‘hidden extras’ must be so well hidden that no one has ever seen them.
Brilliant, grotesque, dazzling and very, very silly. All at the same time.