Track title: “The Wicker Man”
Album: Brave New World
Year: 2000
Written by: Adrian Smith/Steve Harris/Bruce Dickinson
Subject: Old legends and old gods
Type: Fast rocker
Length: 4:35
Familiar? Yes
Rating: 9/10
Now we're talking! After what I may have mentioned once or twice already I consider two lacklustre albums, Maiden came powering back to kick the new millennium in the teeth, armed with Bruce back behind the mike, Adrian slinging on his guitar again and the band with a whole new sense of purpose. Brave New World was the album that, briefly, showed me that Maiden were not a spent force, though sadly this did not continue and so far as I can see the albums from here tailed off badly till we're where we are today. This one lights the fuse on the bomb that brought Maiden back from the dead, almost, and it's a killer, mixed metaphors notwithstanding.
From the first riffs you can hear a new energy and excitement that has been lacking, especially on The X Factor, and it's great to hear Bruce back in charge. I have nothing against Blaze Bayley, but I was delighted to see the main man back. And he sounds happy to be back too, as he snarls “Your time will come!” And it has. I don't think there's a bad track on this album, and “The Wicker Man” is the perfect way to start it off. Fast, powerful riffs, simple, to the point lyric and of course those solos, but above all, this sounds like a band revitalised, re-energised and, as I said before, crawling out of the grave the last two albums had pushed them into. It could only get better from here on in, I thought joyfully, and as far as this album is concerned, I was right. But on a more general level, I was unfortunately rather overstating the case. But forget that for now and just glory in the Second Coming of Maiden, and try, if you can, not to headbang to this! Hell, I don't even mind the “Whoa-oh-oh-oh”s!
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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