Band:	Iron Maiden
Album:	Fear Of The Dark
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	May 12, 1992
Guest review by:	Spyroid

Disc I
01. Be Quick Or Be Dead
02. From Here To Eternity
03. Afraid To Shoot Strangers
04. Fear Is The Key
05. Childhood's End
06. Wasting Love
07. The Fugitive
08. Chains Of Misery
09. The Apparition
10. Judas Be My Guide
11. Weekend Warrior
12. Fear Of The Dark

Disc II [1995 reissue bonus]
01. Nodding Donkey Blues
02. Space Station No. 5 [Montrose cover]
03. I Can't See My Feelings [Budgie cover]
04. Roll Over Vic Vella
05. No Prayer For The Dying [live]
06. Public Enema Number One [live]
07. Hooks In You [live]

Damn! How do you rate an album like this? 'Fear Of The Dark' must be one of the most uneven albums released, and for sure the most uneven Iron Maiden album. There are really two sides of this album, and before I can even talk about the rating I have to evaluate them.

First of all we have the good side. And it's a really good side. There are some tracks on 'Fear Of The Dark' which are just brilliant and deserve very high ratings. They are not only good, but also show that the band has developed, they have very well written lyrics and incredible solos - 'From Here To Eternity' contains my favourite Maiden solo ever. Other tracks that belong to this side are of course the title track, 'Afraid To Shoot Strangers' and 'Wasting Love', plus some other unknown tracks like 'Chains of Misery' and 'Judas Be My Guide' which I like a lot.

If there are two sides and one is good, then the other one has to be bad, which it unfortunately is. 'Fear Of The Dark' doesn't only contain some of the best later Maiden songs, it also contains some crap that is amongst the worst they've ever released. I find fillers on almost every Maiden album which is okay since they have written so much material, but the bad stuff is to bad here. 'Fear Is The Key', 'The Fugitive' and 'Weekend Warrior' are the only really bad tracks but I really despise them.

So, how do we rate then? If the good songs are worth 9-10 and the bad songs 4, the average should be somewhere around 7. I can't stop myself from thinking 'Hey, 'Somewhere In Time' only had 8 tracks - why didn't you excluded four fillers and made an album worth a 9'? Since there is more good stuff on the album and that stuff is really, really good, it stretches over 7. And I'd say it's worth buying for the good songs.