I think I'm in the general direction of Robbiedbee — as an album it's not quite as good as the sum of its parts.
In a way, it's strength is also its weakness — there is a little something for everyone here:
El Dorado and TFF are fresh-sounding takes on straight-ahead, mainstream early '80s metal.
Coming Home and Mother of Mercy are well-structured bits of grown-up melodic metal
The Alchemist is a rocking two-flying-fingers-bass-driven nugget straight out of Powerslave and the Talisman sort of a more epic version of same.
Starblind and Avalon are progressive rock masterpieces quite unlike anything the band has produced before.
The Man Who Would be King has some structures that fit in with the post-'80s stuff, but guitar tones and melodies that would fit on SIT.
And Wild Wind matches or surpasses all of Steve's soft/hard multi-section epics of the past two decades.
Every Maiden fan should find something in that mix that really resonates with them, but there is enough variation most of us also have a few that miss as well.
And I can see why there is so little consensus among us as to the best songs.
A year later two of its tracks sit in my top 10 and its lowest ended up at 79. It scores the highest of any Maiden album for me and deserves the spot at the top of my list it currently holds.
Still, I have come to recognize a flaw — lack of a particular singular identity that binds the tracks together as one and elevates them the way Somewhere in Time, The X Factor, and A Matter of Life and Death mesh into one piece of art.
I see The Final Frontier as an outstanding collection of songs, perhaps the best one the band has ever recorded.
But as a cohesive unit, it's missing something.