Metal Reviews

You're welcome to comment on:


Click here to see the review.

In my opinion 73 is being quite generous. There's simply too much obvious filler material on the two discs hurts the listening experience and the good tracks could have been better. On the whole I'd say it feels like Book Of Souls is unfinished which is a shame. Had it been a single disc album exploring the strong points more this would be a decent enough album and that's what really gets me. The album had potential and its a shame that wasn't fully explored. 60/100 for me.

This does feel like a rough draft for what could have been a much tighter, more focused album. There are some really good moments on Book of Souls that were unfortunately dulled by the excessive length of the songs themselves. That said, it's refreshing to see the band still pushing the creative envelope this long into their career even if they did come up short of expectations. I think 73 is a pretty fair score given the high points on the album and the obvious effort the band took in creating this double-disc monstrosity.

The high points are strong enough no doubt but I give it a lower score because there are so many lowlights. Pretty much the entire second disc is filler which lessened the experience as a whole for me. It must be said though that I'm not really in the mood to proggy heavy metal right now so that bias shows in my scorng of 60

So far I find this release a bit easier to digest than the last two albums. I agree that this album sounds like something from the "Dance of Death" sessions. i don't like the production thought. The drums sound muddy and the guitars are not as predominant or ballsy. But the song writing on this release was an improvement over the last two. Take it for what it's worth!

I really like the album, but I some songs just don't do it for me yet. Maybe subsequent listens will change that. Speed of Light is a great catchy tune and the Red and the Black is great also. I agree with the review for the most part I'd probably rate it at about 82. Maiden is the best band of all time IMO, but this one isn't one of my personal favorites so far. I've been listening to Amorphis since Black Winter Day and they have been my favorite band since Eclipse. Their new album is easily the best album so far this year. It's a perfect album. I would give it a 100 rating. You guys should review that album.

Well, if Final Frontier was scored in the 80s, The Book of Souls (a better album) should at least be the same.
That said I pretty much agree with your review (including your killer songs). I made myself an edit version of an overlong album with some real fillers, in my opinon. I kept 7 of the 11 songs for a grand total of 66 minutes. Left aside were The Great Unknown (boring as hell), Shadows of the Valley (too formulaic), Tears of a Clown (good sentiments often make bad songs) and The Man of Sorrows (no up to Man of Sorrows, I say !).
To this album, those 66 minutes and 46 seconds, this excellent album with good to great songs, I give a 88/100.

From the looks of it, this album is pretty much what I expected. I am yet to get it. For some strange reason, I am not that eager. I feel it can wait.

Souls has been steadily growing on me over this past week. Some passages still drag on a little too long, but I'm really enjoying most of this album as much as anything Maiden has put out since the reunion with Bruce. Speaking of Dickinson, Empire of the Clouds is one of the best songs he's ever written. It's certainly overlong (especially in the middle section) but still manages to maintain it's grandiose atmosphere with effective tempo changes, excellent storytelling and a stellar performance by Bruce. After repeated listens, I feel very comfortable giving this album an 80/100. Blows new Slayer out of the fucking' water!

Well I agree with your last point but for me Book Of Souls grows less interesting with subsequent listens. It's still a mid sixty for me which is an improvement on Final Frontier which I scored around 30. I just don't dig Maiden like I used to. Even AMOLAD which I did like quite a bit has grown stale in recent years.

I don't even think I'm gonna bother downloading it. They said TFF was their last album didn't they? and frankly they have always been very average to me, even in their glory days. It's not like I cant find this album in ten years if for some reason I become a fan of theirs for some reason in the future.

I just can't get interested in anything after Somewhere In Time, even Seventh Son, somehow.