Album DescriptionAvailable in:
The Final Frontier es el decimoquinto álbum de estudio de la banda de heavy metal británica Iron Maiden, cuya publicación mundial fue el lunes 16 de agosto de 2010. A Matter of Life and Death, salió en 2006, lo que se convierte en el período más largo entre dos álbumes (4 años).
Un dato importante a considerar es su duración: con sus 76:35 minutos es el álbum de estudio más largo publicado por la banda, superando a A Matter Of Life And Death (2006) que posee 71:58 minutos.
El álbum alcanzó rápidamente el puesto número uno en el Billboard mundial (24 países) convirtiéndose así en su octava vez en dicha posición.
Asimismo, la gira The Final Frontier World Tour promotora del álbum comenzó el 9 de junio de 2010 en Dallas, Texas, y finalizó el 21 de agosto del mismo año en Valencia, con el comienzo de una gira por Europa.
La banda Dream Theater acompañó a Iron Maiden durante la gira.
User Album Review
As metal moments go, they don’t get much bigger than the arrival of a new Iron Maiden album. Expectations are always huge even if they’re not always met. But then there are almost as many visions of a perfect Iron Maiden album as there are Maiden fans, and the band have never, ever sought to please anyone other than themselves. It’s the secret of their success, and their 15th studio album offers a wild ride for those willing to get on board.
Maiden don’t really do playing it safe. The voices of critics who seem to want to consign the band to an endless 1980s time loop are always disproportionately loud and ignore the fact that Maiden have never played the nostalgia game. Beginning with frontman Bruce Dickinson’s return to the band in 1999, Maiden have embarked on the most successful phase of their career whilst fully indulging their progressive tendencies and eschewing compact, catchy numbers like Run to the Hills and The Trooper; the sort of material the 80s trolls obsess over. Maiden have never been bigger and it’s all been on their own terms. In that light, this album is exactly the sort of full-on prog-a-thon they were always going to write. Why would they even dream of doing anything else?
The Final Frontier is the longest album of a long career but there’s barely a minute wasted. There are more ideas here than many bands manage in their entire career, but in inimitable Maiden style, it’s woven together beautifully. Released in advance of the album, the single El Dorado is misleading. It’s a solid if unspectacular effort, a comfortable mid-album track rather than a spanking showpiece. But even the band’s best albums contain small amounts of filler and this forgettable effort is forgivable. It’s certainly not typical of the album as a whole. Satellite 15... The Final Frontier opens proceedings with no small amount of melodrama, setting the scene for a series of truly gargantuan epics.
The mid-paced stomp Mother of Mercy, lighter-waving ballad Coming Home and up-tempo headbanger The Alchemist are all classic Maiden and make for an exciting prelude. The meat of the matter, however, is found in the sheer immensity of the second half. Loaded with changes in tempo and tone, restlessly twisting and turning, from Isle of Avalon to When the Wild Wind Blows, this is Iron Maiden truly living their purpose. No compromises, just complexities and challenges and more moments of brilliance than perhaps even they thought they still had left in them. A remarkable achievement.
External Album Reviews
None...
User Comments