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This is a review i wrote on another music website. I know its not the best review in the world, but i'm just sharing my opinions....
Powerslave, Iron Maiden's 5th studio album, released in 1984. And it ranks with one of their best. Most Maiden fans consider Powerslave to be Iron Maiden's best album, and I somewhat agree...somewhat.
Powerslave was the album to shoot Maiden far into heavy metal stardom and contains 4 tracks which arguably could be their best songs ever (Aces High, 2 Minutes To Midnight, Powerslave & Rime Of The Ancient Mariner). But those songs are only half of the album. The other 4 tracks would be summed up as average at best, whether it would be from poor lyrics or it just isnt very good. So,as a WHOLE album, those average tracks bring down this album...but not too far.
The album kicks off with a bang with Aces High. Dickinson's vocals in full swing, especially in the chorus. The twin guitar sounds are fantastic. 2 Minutes To Midnight is the next track, and another fantastic song that ranks up there with Maiden's best ever. Track 3 is an instrumental called Losefer Words. As far as instrumentals go, it is very good, but a track you would normally skip.
Flash Of The Blade comes next, and in my opinion it's an average to OK track, but nowhere near as good as the first two (or last two). The Duallists is next, the track which is consider to be the poorest on the album. For me, the structure of the song and the way it is sung annoys me. The album picks up a little with the next track, Back In The Village, but again only warrants an average to OK rating.
The albums picks up from where it started, with the fantastic title track, Powerslave, which is followed by the awesome 13+ minute epic, Rime Of The Ancient Mariner to close out the album. The song is based on an old poem, and contains everything you want in an epic maiden song.
Song-writing is very good on this album (as it is on all of Maiden's albums). The main song-writer, Steve Harris, continues to write wonderful lyrics and music, and is the heart and soul of Iron Maiden, though he tends to stay in the shadows and let Bruce Dickinson be the face of Maiden.
Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith also contributes to the song-writing on this album, Dickinson has two songs to his name, Powerslave and Flash Of The Blade, while Smith and Dickinson co-wrote 2 Minutes To Midnight and Back In The Village.
Musically, you know how Maiden plays. Air raid siren vocals with soaring, ripping and wild guitars, and heavy bass with pounding drums. Powerslave is all that and more.
(rating each song is as follows: 0.98-1= killer track, 0.95-0.97= awesome track, 0.90-0.93= very good track, 0.85-0.88= OK/good track, 0.80-0.83= poor/average track. Note, instrumentals are not included)
Aces High: 1
2 Minutes To Midnight: 1
Flash Of The Blade: 0.88
The Duallists: 0.85
Back In The Village: 0.87
Powerslave: 1
Rime Of The Ancient Mariner: 1 = 6.6, divided by 7 (tracks) = 0.9428, then multiply by 100 = 94.3%
This album is worth purchasing for those 4 awesome tracks alone and it also has the best album cover of all Maiden albums. This is classic 80's Iron Maiden at their best.
In my opinion, Powerslave is Iron Maiden's 3rd best studio album. In front of Powerslave is #2, Somewhere In Time & #1, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
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I'm flattered! :oops: 
