CD Review: Iron Maiden – Book Of Souls

CD Review: Iron Maiden – Book Of Souls
BMG Recorded Music
All Access Rating: A-

Iron Maiden - The Book of Souls 2015

Flying too close to the sun is an occupational hazard for Bruce Dickinson, both as an aviation enthusiast and as the lead singer of heavy metal legends Iron Maiden.

Ignoring the lessons of Icarus – the cautionary tale having been recounted by the metal legends on the 1983 album Piece Of Mind – Dickinson and company climb to dangerously lofty heights on an ambitious new double LP entitled Book Of Souls. Somehow they manage to do so without crashing to earth in a burning heap of singed feathers.

Exploring issues of mortality and the nature of souls with a deep intellectual curiosity, the highly literate Book Of Souls is a progressive-metal epiphany – with a strong emphasis on the word "progressive." Whether charging once more into the breach with the pounding rhythmic hooves, galvanizing strength and hot metallic breath of "Death Or Glory," "When the River Runs Deep" and "Speed Of Light" or traveling the winding passages of the glorious "Empire of the Clouds" – Dickinson's 18-minute long, piano-based opus and now the longest song in Maiden's catalog – the follow-up to 2010's The Final Frontier is a daring musical adventure. Maiden has never shown this much diversity or taken these kinds of risks.

With Dickinson, Steve Harris and Adrian Smith divvying up the songwriting duties, Book Of Souls artfully develops heady harmonies, plots out clever changes and subtle intricacies and indulges in the kind of signature gallops and dramatic builds and flourishes that have always been part and parcel of Maiden's sonic mythology. Practically daring critics to grouse about how "overblown" the release is, Maiden throws all of these elements into the chugging, dizzying rush of blood to the head that is "The Red and the Black," the sweeping, cinematic grandeur of "Shadow Of The Valley" and the wheeling, serrated sharpness of "The Great Unknown," controlling shifts in tempo and dynamics like puppet masters. Even with three songs eclipsing the 10-minute mark, Maiden seizes this opportunity to distinctly shape and mold its melodic sensibilities on "If Eternity Should Fail" – dodgy synthesizer intro and all – and the Robin Williams' tribute "Tears Of A Clown," trotting out good, sure hooks in thoroughly impressive displays of song craftsmanship.

Hardly diminished by time, Dickinson's stirring vocal histrionics are forceful and dynamic, but it's his expressive reading of "The Man Of Sorrows," emerging from quiet calm and a menacing undercurrent, that's his most affecting performance here. Flowing twin-guitar leads and searing solos shoot forth like missiles from the guitar armada of Smith, Dave Murray and Janick Gers, while drummer Nicko McBrain offers his trademark acrobatic rolls and Harris takes a more nuanced approach to his bass work – choosing to prod and pull Maiden with an easier touch, rather than simply thundering away out in front.

Anyone holding their breath for a return to the explosive heaviness and raw, immediate excitement of Killers or even The Number of the Beast should probably exhale. While not completely abandoning the identity it's taken them decades to establish, on Book Of Souls an even more theatrical and indulgent Maiden expands what defines them, making them harder to pigeonhole. That, in and of itself, doesn't automatically qualify Book Of Souls a great record, but the fact that it contains music that is consistently compelling and interesting does.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Various Artists – Jon Lord, Deep Purple & Friends – Celebrating Jon Lord

CD Review: Various Artists: Jon Lord, Deep Purple & Friends – Celebrating Jon Lord
earMusic and Eagle Rock Entertainment
All Access Rating: A-

Various Artists: Jon Lord, Deep Purple
& Friends - Celebrating Jon Lord

It had to take place at the Royal Albert Hall, didn't it?

After all, that was where Jon Lord and Deep Purple, in 1969, famously performed the revolutionary "Concerto for Group and Orchestra," a groundbreaking work that joined the forces of rock and classical music in a surprisingly natural and organic marriage that showed the two forms are not exactly oil and water.

Just weeks prior to his death in 2012, Lord finished his remake of the composition, a labor love for Lord and an all-consuming passion that, some years earlier, made leaving Deep Purple once and for all a little easier – well, that and the fact that he'd had enough of touring.

No other setting then would do then for this extraordinary tribute to an uncommon man in Lord, as this 2014 version of the much-ballyhooed Sunflower Jam rounded up a veritable "who's who" of rock royalty for a gala all-star jam, backed by a full orchestra conducted by Paul Mann.

Cleaved into two halves, the concert, captured on a new release entitled Jon Lord, Deep Purple & Friends – Celebrating Jon Lord, offers a resounding and joyous examination of his remarkable career, in between jokes, stories and heartfelt expressions of love for the man. Two hours were reserved for a stylish, beautiful and wonderfully arranged renditions of Lord's classical music explorations, given new life by Mann and the Orion Orchestra, that comprises Jon Lord – The Composer and features three pieces from Sarabande, including a guest turn from keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman on the title track.

And then there's the Jon Lord – The Rock Legend set, where friends, colleagues and admirers remember Lord's extraordinary contributions to popular music, starting with Paul Weller and his bouncy, sweaty, horn-swaddled revivals of R&B rousers "Things Get Better" and – with a little help from Micky Moody – "I Take What I Want," recalling Lord's time in the early '60s with The Artwoods.

Glenn Hughes comes aboard for a soulful, smoky reading of "You Keep on Moving" that simply smolders with dark sensuality, following an especially poignant version of "Soldier of Fortune," with Steve Balsamo, Sandi Thom and Moody lending vocals. Perhaps predictably, a full-throttle, fiery "Burn" sets the venerable house ablaze, as Bruce Dickinson, Ian Paice and Don Airey join Hughes and Moody let it all hang out while roaring through the Deep Purple Mark III chestnut like a freight train.

Speaking of Purple, the current incarnation of the band – Airey, Paice, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover and Steve Morse – closes things out with 45 minutes of spectacular virtuoso jams, Airey in particular relishing the opportunity to grab "Lazy" by the throat and heat that Hammond organ up until it glows red. And for a finale, Dickinson, Wakeman, Moody, Phil Campbell and Bernie Marsden return to the stage with Purple to bring the house down with an invigorating take on "Hush." Somewhere, Lord is still smiling. http://www.ear-music.net/en/news/ http://www.eagle-rock.com/
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Amon Amarth – Deceiver of the Gods

CD Review: Amon Amarth – Deceiver of the Gods

Metal Blade

All Access Review: A-

Amon Amarth - Deceiver of the Gods 2013

There’s a special place in Valhalla reserved for AmonAmarth. Brandishing guitars like gleaming, freshly sharpened blades, the Swedish death-metal war party and Iron Maiden descendants have earned it with an admirable body of brutally heavy wet work.

Obsessed with Norse mythology, Amon Amarth is known for drawing scenes of bloody battles forgotten by history and paying tribute to courage in close combat on rough terrain strewn with stinking, decomposing corpses. Gird your loins once again, because the relentless Deceiver of the Gods has come to pillage and plunder with songs armed to the teeth with beast-like riffage, hell-spawned vocals and strong, dynamic melodies forged in steel that survive massive storms of transfixing sound and fury. 

The squishy, gurgling noises of a man bleeding out and breathing his last after being stabbed is heard right before the rampaging “Blood Eagle” storms whatever territory it is that Amon Amarth must take by force, and it is sobering. A revenge song, replete with the ghoulish moaning of Viking ghosts, “Blood Eagle” is typical of Deceiver of the Gods, thick and intense, but always serving its conflicted masters of shifting, tightly wound harmonies and immense power surges.

Nothing on Deceiver of the Gods has the massive tonnage of “Hel,” a death march that slogs through mud and gore to find the glory of war, if there is such a thing. Immersed in traditional metal and doom elements, “Hel” is a black mix of different vocal textures, comprised of Johan Hegg’s usual hoary growl, deathly background wailing and the operatic histrionics of Candlemass guest singer Messiah Marcolin, who sounds like Bruce Dickinson’s evil twin. Those thick, burly guitars that smash “Hel” into kindling also crush “We Shall Destroy,” and they come in mammoth waves. But it’s the melodic spirals of guitars that lift the soul of that track above the instrumental chaos and violence on the song’s terra firma that really astound, as they do on the pummeling closer “Warriors of the North” and the punishing, explosive “Shape Shifter.”

Known for his ability to heighten the impact and sonic aggression flooding out of his client’s amplifiers, producer Andy Sneap increases the voltage of Amon Amarth on Deceiver of the Gods. Electricity courses through the veins of these tracks, riding old-school power chords into the night. Their grooves are somehow even more muscular than ever on the turbo-charged “Father of the Wolf” and the title track’s furious thrashing, and the melodic parts – see the intro to the fast progressive-metal maze “As Loke Falls” – are assertive and magical, almost spellbinding at times.

The devilishly playful Norse god Loke inhabits this indomitable fortress of metal, and Amon Amarth only encourages him, following his melodic whims and destructive tendencies. Similar in character to previous releases, Deceiver of the Gods finds Amon Amarth sticking to a formula that works for them, adding power and definition to every unexpected, expertly executed maneuver and rich tonality to their remorseless attack. This is a well-plotted battle plan, the likes of which Rommel might have conceived. Whatever game of thrones Amon Amarth is playing, they are winning. http://www.metalblade.com/us/

– Peter Lindblad