Band:	Iron Maiden
Album:	Dance Of Death
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	September 08, 2003
A review by:	Pierre Tombale

01. Wildest Dreams
02. Rainmaker
03. No More Lies
04. Montségur
05. Dance Of Death
06. Gates Of Tomorrow
07. New Frontier
08. Paschendale
09. Face In The Sand
10. Age Of Innocence
11. Journeyman

Iron Maiden's 2003 release was something that by the first listen didn't convince me much. I even went this far thinking to myself Bruce Dickinson should have rather continued with his solo career, but luckily I've waited long enough to change my mind.

Concluding there must be something entirely different to previous releases (which was also true for the Brave New World album) to make a die hard Iron Maiden (incl. Bruce Dickinson) fan shake his had (and I don't mean bang of course). The first thing that disturbed me was the first single ... It sounded rather poor and still does in comparison to the rest of the album. I mean it evokes the right feeling, continuing on paths of Brave New World, but on a much lower level and yes it took me some time to get into B. N. W., too... Anyway the second song' Rainmaker', that is still my favourite on the album, takes the opposite direction, entirely satisfying from the start, somehow something that I expected to be and it came out just right (thinking of nothing in particular though) the result is Rainmaker, an awesome song. Then at first I found other tracks to be rather lame and unsatisfying (for sure, I wouldn't have to state that I changed my mind, would I?). This category was filled by 'Dance Of Death' and the tracks from 'Paschendale' to the last song 'Journeyman'. I simply couldn't find the relation to older what I've heard before, indeed I rather thought, this is not really Maiden, this is some band of old dudes that will retire in the very near future.
Well, some of these songs develop rather slowly, but unveil an energy and a spirit unmatched by former works of Maiden. I am not saying that tis is their best album, but to those having difficulties in approaching this records inner core I can only say: 'Dig deeper andtil the full truth unfolds and you get a glance at a let's say rather sterile beauty that has a different feel and a different meaning than other Maiden albums. Some sort of growing old with dignity rather than reproducing the old stuff again and again (although you can't say that there was a clear tendency to that in the past, excluding albums done with Blaze Bayley, I tend to rather take this as comparison with other bands).
A song that still splits my own opinion is 'Montsegúr' which has a great verse, but when it comes to the chorus (which is instrumentally repeated more often than by the vocals) I dislike it. As for the slower pieces, like the title track, I do really enjoy them all now, for they have calmness but reaching a climax that is far beyond that, with the orchestral addition (still I wonder if this not all just keyboards) reaching spheres that are totally different from older Maiden material.
This album is definitely stronger than I first expected (though the cover art is not the greatest ever, but well, let's focus on the music) so I give it 9 points.