IRON MAIDEN

Brave New World

“Iron Maiden were a band that were really on their knees when we went into record Brave New World ,” producer Kevin Shirley told Metal Hammer last year when talking about his work on one of metal’s all-time great comeback records. Melodramatic? Maybe, but anyone who saw Maiden in the 90s knew that, at the very least, their star had waned. True, The X Factor and Virtual XI are very decent albums in their own right, still defended passionately by Steve Harris and featuring songs that have appeared in Maiden sets as recently as their Legacy Of The Beast tour. But when Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith returned to the fold and began work on a new album, hopes weren’t so much high as astronomical. It’s no overstatement to say that Maiden’s future on top relied on Brave New World delivering the goods: produce a dud, and they’d likely never again attain the kind of reverence of their 80s golden age.

Of course, we all know what happened next. Brave New World isn’t just the best album of Maiden’s second run of Bruce records. It’s one of the very best albums of their whole career.

Twenty years on, it still sounds absolutely humongous, not a single chink in its armour showing over its one hour and seven minutes (which is, let’s be honest, an EP by today’s Maiden standards). The likes of Brave New World, Out Of The Silent Planet and The Thin Line Between Love And Hate are grandiose, hall of fame-worthy anthems, while Blood Brothers remains the band’s most poignant and emotional track to date. The Wicker Man, meanwhile, is as good a Maiden song as has ever been written: fast, furious and catchy as fuck, it may only come second as a Maiden album opener to Aces High. And only just.

LISTEN TO: Blood Brothers