Dance of Death saw Maiden clad in full black leather, trying to recuperate their status as Metal idols after Brave New World gave them a second helping of love from their estranged audiences. It was also a time where a sense of finality was being thrown around, lots of rumors and comments about not knowing if they wanted to keep going for much longer. In a way, it's a hint of midlife crisis in metal form. I dunno man. Being in your 40s must be weird.
We all know the horrid album cover, the artist himself declared that this was a mockup of the concept he had for the final version of the cover but was baffled when Steve told him that was good enough. It's so ugly, I don't even have something to compare it to. But the playing card-like patterns are kinda nice, they look good as decoration. At least Eddie looks nice as Death itself.
The sonics of the album are also kinda questionable. In the same period of time, St Anger, Dance of Death and Vapor Trails came out: three signs of three major legacy acts getting caught on very awful production jobs in an appeal to sound "modern" (and most likely to cater to the growing audience listening to 96/128kpbs mp3s). Out of these three, Imo, VT was the worse one in the sense that a remix actually brought a ton of things back to the front and made the album listenable. The three albums also have in common that they tried to be, more or less, kinda buttrock-y in their approach. St Anger was just, well, Anger, concentrated in an awfully long stream of mediocre half baked riffs with no solos. Vapor Trails was a comeback to 70s proto metal Rush, again with no solos... Out of these, Maiden's effort is probably the only one where the identity of the band was kept intact and unscathed, but it was also the last album Maiden did that could be called metal from start to finish. Maiden would go on to become a progressive metal band with AMOLAD as we know, and they've made it their de facto sonic identity since then.
And metal is what you get with the two openers: a one two punch kinda deal with Wildest Dreams and Rainmaker. Rainmaker has this mid 90s Maiden thing where choruses get repeated to no end, which feels shitty in shorter songs, but they are hard hitting and the riffs are top notch. The same goes for No More Lies, a personal favorite of mine and a candidate for top 5 post reunion songs for me. While this is effectively a 7 minute song, it's mostly a longer metal track as opposed to a proggy epic. The riffs are catchy and the chorus really invites you to sing along. And the live versions are always good fun. Montségur is a song I like, as well, and it's more in line with Rainmaker (albeit also in repetitive choruses). I like the melodies, but the storytelling feels a bit contrived, like Bruce is rushing its way into his usual narrative deal. I don't skip it when it comes, but I don't listen to it on its own.
The title track is a masterpiece of folky proggy Maiden. It's like an epitome of Maiden's sound, and it's one of those times where you begin to realize that reunion Maiden is actually better than 80s Maiden. I think this epic is just as good as Rime or Alex, and probably even better. And you just know this was the right time for a song like DoD to be made, they wouldn't even dream of being able to do a song like this in the past. Live performances of this song had to be seen to be believed. Everything about it is perfect and we all know this song is full deserving of its praise.
After such a song, Gates of Tomorrow and New Frontier feel like a bit of a cool down, but it was necessary. This is more like Brave New World b sides, although I have to say I prefer these two to a lot of BNW stuff, and, honestly, I'd rather have these instead of Rainmaker and Montségur. Especially New Frontier.
Paschendale, I'm a bit conflicted about. It's an enormous epic, yes, it's musically perfect, the choruses are grandiose... but... I feel it lacks "it". It lacks the inherent fire DoD had. I think this is a bit of a flaw in Adrian's songwriting, he can get in a place where he tries too hard to be solemn, and this is probably one of those occasions. Mind you, we're still talking about an undeniable 9 vs the title track's 10/10 score, but still... In a way, it's kind of a window into what AMOLAD would be. Try sandwiching Paschendale into AMOLAD to see how you feel about it.
The double bass drums in Face in the Sand feel kinda wack, Nicko is not used to them or doesn't know how to use them properly here, but it doesn't matter. This is one of my personal deep cuts, actually. Adrian's solemnity worked better here in some aspects, but I have to say this track gives me a bit of a Blaze era mood as well. I like the clean riffs and the keyboards in the background.
Age of Innocence feels like a bit of a dud to me. I'd put them below Gates of Tomorrow and New Frontier. I can't shake the feeling Bruce is trying to explain why he supports Brexit here (granted, Brexit came later, but it's not like those opinions were born out of thin air).
Journeyman is one of those odd tracks they've done, a bit in the line of Como Estais Amigos and Empire of the Clouds. Something not really associated with Maiden, but a nice thing to have, albeit more to surprise (or shock) older fans I'm afraid. I'ts kinda soso but a decent closer, I guess. At least it got live play, as opposed to the other tracks I mentioned.
Overall, an 8/10 for me, with clear winners, and one of the top 3 Reunion Maiden albums.
