The Music in my Life

First, sorry for the longish delay in posting. With that out of the way…

This album, which I’m listening to right now (I’ve never mentioned it before, but all of these posts are written while listening to the album in question, and the present case is no exception), you may be surprised to know, isn’t my favorite album with Bruce Dickinson (here, counting the Iron Maiden ones). It isn’t even my favorite Bruce Dickinson solo album (I’d say The Chemical Wedding is even better). It is, however, simply damn good.

A bit of history: in 1997, when this album was released, Bruce had left Maiden, which had gone on with Blaze Bayley, and its latest albums weren’t very well received. At the time, most people blamed Blaze, though, in my opinion, when he left and Dickinson came back, they went on making exactly the same kind of music as in The X-Factor and Virtual XI. I still like the new Maiden, but their newer albums sound too similar and “muddy” to me. The Number of the Beast, they aren’t.

Meanwhile, Bruce released a couple of strange albums, which, although they had some great songs here and there, revealed a guy who was trying as hard as he could to prove (perhaps most of all to himself?) that he wasn’t “just about metal”. Yes, it’s exactly what Rob Halford did after he left Priest.

Accident of Birth is when Bruce Dickinson stopped pretending to be something he wasn’t. (Hmm, much like Halford’s Resurrection…). When he admitted that, after all, he did love metal, soaring voices, screaming guitars, pounding drums, and all that.

And he joined with two brilliant guitarists: Roy Z (hey, he produced Halford’s Resurrection as well… is this a conspiracy? :)), and Adrian Smith, formerly (and, now, again) of Maiden. The result is this masterpiece.

This is what Maiden would sound like now, if they hadn’t stopped growing musically around 1988. If they still had the passion they had on their first albums. If the albums’ production didn’t drown the vocals like it does (compare Bruce’s voice here to Brave New World, for instance… it almost sounds like a different guy). If Maiden wasn’t an establishment like it is. (Don’t get me wrong, I still love Maiden and buy all their new albums; it’s still great music, but something is gone, IMO.)

The album itself is fantastic. No song begs “skip me”. Nowhere is Bruce’s voice less than perfect, less than passionate, emotional, powerful. Both music and lyrics are brilliant (to be topped only by The Chemical Wedding, in my opinion). This is pure metal without gimmicks: not black, not death, not power, not (yuck) nu. Just metal. What Maiden should be now, and aren’t (even with Dickinson back).

Listen to it as a piece of perfection, and as evidence of what a man can do when he stops trying to run away from himself.

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