I adore The Final Frontier

This is far and away the best aged album of theirs for me. I thought it was very middle-of-the-road for them. Not bad but not outstanding. However, as the years creep by, TFF has grown on me. Dare I say I put it above AMOLAD, which is my favorite reunion album and my second favorite album of theirs. AMOLAD is more solid than TFF, a consistent wall-to-wall sound with nothing short of 9/10 songs (and mostly 10/10). It's them at top form, but it's not them at their most playful. TFF is more creative, more experimental, and most of all more dynamic. The pace changes, and even the shorter songs are deceptively more complex than I thought upon first listen. Killer stuff, and something you'd expect from a younger band imo.
 
Brave New World is a bit like Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. A decent album with some really strong songs. However like Californication, it is a ‘comeback’ album so most people swoon over it. As a result the album very rarely gets criticised by fans or the press.
BNW is my favorite Maiden album. It has nothing to do with it being the reunion album - I got into Maiden in 2004 and BNW was maybe the 6th or so album I heard. The songs are just there and tracks like Blood Brothers, GOTN, the title track and The Wicker Man are spectacular, and the weaker songs like The Mercenary and The Fallen Angel are really good. It's one of Maiden's most consistent albums (note - Not "the") while other classics like Powerslave or NOTB have deeper valleys than BNW, albeit higher peaks. The production and Bruce's out of this world performance constitute a great icing on the cake as well.
 
Nomad is the best song on BNW. And yea, I think BNW gets fairly criticized. If Maiden didn’t strike a home run after Virtual XI they would’ve gotten chewed up and spit out by the press. It’s not my favorite reunion album, but it’s very good and stands right along with their 80s material.
 
It's not a bad album. It has a bunch of very good songs like the Final Frontier, El Dorado, Isle of Avalon and Starblind, it has a couple of fillers but to me the order of the songs are wrong. Too many long songs in the 'B side' and maybe too many songs in the album. I like the prog songs like Isle of Avalon (maybe an extended The Longest Day) and Starblind (one of the best lyrics) I like the catchy songs like The Final Frontier and El Dorado because the catchy chorus and the direct guitar solos. Coming Home reminded me to Out of the Shadows, Wasting Love…that kind of formula song. The rest of the songs are Janick and Steve repeated formula. I don't like the production but to me works better than The Book of Souls.

I like the album but I don't adore it.
Edit: The cover is awful, worst than Virtual XI. I would preferred the El Dorado comic style cover.
 
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I'm going to take it up a notch and say I love The Final Frontier.

If you don't have anything smarter to do with your time, here's a couple of my thoughts, memories and opinions about it.

It was August 10th 2010. By now I've already heard El Dorado and Satellite 15...The Final Frontier and I liked them both. Couple of days before the release, Amazon had these samples you could hear on their web page. They started around the 1 minute mark and lasted 30 seconds. I couldn't resist so I went and listened. Only from those samples I had high expectations but at the same time I felt a bit anxious. These samples I've heard were right down my lane, but I had the same experience with AMOLAD and got disappointed in most cases (majority of choruses didn't work for me on that one.) Anyway, a week prior the album leaked. I already ordered the album, but the album would probably come much later than August 16th and on that day I was seeing Maiden at Villa Manin, Italy. I knew the setlist and I knew they wouldn't change it right in the middle of the tour (even if you consider they played only one song from the album on the tour which carried the same name as the album). Still, that "What if?" question started appearing. More so, at the end of the day (August 10th) I remembered it was the 2 years anniversary of my favorite Maiden gig where one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments happened: I went on a stage during Heaven Can Wait.

"I already ordered the album. What's the harm if I download it and maybe listen to a song or two I haven't heard before? What if they play some of those songs live in a couple of days? What if one of those songs ended up being my favorite and this was my only chance to hear it live? After all, Maiden means a lot to me, why should I restrain myself from something that I like?" So, I put the album on. First two songs passed, then came Mother of Mercy sample that I've heard and all I could think was: "OK, where are we going? Please, let it be good..." Where we went was a one-way lane of awesomeness, that's where. As soon as the chorus came, I knew I was hooked. Instead of breaking the tempo or changing the mood of the song, they took it up a step and delivered a perfect chorus for that short rocker. I love how they constructed it. Instead of repeating two lines of which one was the name of the song (it usually goes A-B-A-B or A-A-A-B ) they brought a bit of diversity (A-B-A-C-A-D-A-E). Late night, with headphones on my ears I knew I was in for the ride.

OK, it took me two paragraphs to write this and if I did song by song, this would end up a thesis. What's to say about the rest of the album?

Should I mention that Coming Home felt the most personal song since Wasted Years in terms that this one seems like one of those rare opportunities where they share a tiny bit of their personal lives and feelings while they're on the road?
All those choruses on The Alchemist? Who cares how many are there if they sound so fun like they do?
You know how they say music takes you to different places? Do they refer to Isle of Avalon's intro which, in my opinion, lifts you right out of this world into mystical Maiden fantasy?
And how about diversity on the album? Title song has this simplistic riff, yes, but meanwhile who could expect that Adrian would rip out solo right in the middle of the chorus on Starblind?
Seven songs in, I was already through a storm of (positive) emotions, but how about a song with literal storm in it? Yes, The Talisman is a storm of a song, both literally and figuratively.
I shouldn't maybe mention that even to this day I don't get The Man Who Would Be King, should I? Anyway, it's 1 out of 10, so it's not that bad.

I'm going to stop on the last track a little bit. Nine songs passed and I was so happy, at that moment I didn't even care if the last one sucked. But that 30 second melody from When The Wild Wind Blows was stuck in my head for days and I must admit I had some sort of expectation from that 11-minute Harris track. "OK, everything's been great so far, even if this one doesn't deliver - it's still an awesome album." Feeling both excited and anxious I pressed "Play"....

Eleven minutes later and I'm standing in the middle of the room with my hands held high like I won the lottery or Olympic gold or both. Again! Again! AGAIN! I have no idea how much I repeated that song when I heard it for the first time. The clock showed wee hours and I knew I had to wake up at 7AM for my morning shift but the adrenaline pumping through my blood was so high I knew there was no chance I could fall asleep now. I went down to the kitchen, boiled a few cups of coffee, returned to my room and put on the headphones again. Let's go through it again from the beginning. As you can guess from now, I didn't sleep that night. I showed up for work tomorrow morning and although I should've looked like a zombie from The Walking Dead, I did the whole shift with a cemented grin on my face.

Life is good. You're seeing your favorite band in 5 days and more importantly - they've put out a stellar album that you'll probably listen to, re-listen and dissect for years. Probably soon, they'll go on a proper tour and they'll play more songs from that album and you'll go to see it. TFF, El Dorado and Coming Home are certain. There are some long tracks on the second part of the album, but dear God, I hope they play When The Wild Wind Blows. They must! (spoiler: they did and I saw them twice in 2011. At this point, I'm not ashamed to admit I probably shed a tear or two when I heard songs from TFF live.)

More than 10 years have passed since that night and we all know feelings change with time. But not with this one. How to put my feelings bluntly? Something like this - When The Wild Wind Blows is like a person you meet for the first time and have a feeling you knew them your whole life (in a positive way). To some extent, I could even say the same thing about the rest of the album. When I try to "defend" TFF it would be easy to contradict me saying I'm emotionally attached to it. Yes, it's true. But! I'm also attached to some other songs/albums/bands yet I don't rate them so high. Then there are scenarios where the same things grow on you with time and you change your opinion. Again, not with this one. I always laugh when people obsess themselves whether they like it or not. If you like it - you like it, if you don't - you don't! It's as simple as that. I have a friend who is well into movies and Tarantino is one of his models. So, when we talked about it, he confessed he went like 4 or 5 times to the cinema to watch "Hateful Eight" because he wasn't sure if he liked it or not. My answer was: "You didn't. If you did, you wouldn't have to go 3-4 more times and you wouldn't ask yourself that question after all those viewings."

Let's go back 10 years in the past again, this time after I saw them at Villa Manin. A couple of us were chatting after the gig and of course, touched the subject of the new album. I noticed a lot of them cautiously talked about the songs and none of them said: "Yeah, it's great, no doubt about it." The discussion ended with one guy concluding something like this: "Well, they're not going to record another 7th Son, are they? The TFF is OK." Discussing with metal fans (especially Maiden ones!) can be a futile and exhausting job, especially after being dried out after a powerful gig, so I just let it slide. Moreso, I believe there are tons of fans who think like that and this would be my question to them: "What did Maiden do/did on the next 7 albums that made you think they're going to record another 7th Son? Really, looking at the past two decades, where exactly is the notion that Maiden wants to record something like that? Of course you like Moonchild because you've been listening to it for 22 years now. Does that mean Starblind is a bad song?"

I also love Brave New World, some say because it's a reunion album. In my case, it's the album that got me heavily involved into Iron Maiden and metal generally. Nevertheless, it's a strong album with hits that stood the test of time. However, looking back at it I must admit - it's a bit safe. Nothing wrong with that of course, but there's nothing groundbreaking. You got your great opening combo (of which one ended up a hit single) hit ballad, short rocker, "proggy" epic, radio-friendly stuff and those last two tracks that had traces of something new and something experimental. Overall atmosphere of the album is hopeful and I believe both critics and fans were more than satisfied that Maiden delivered what they promised. Dance of Death pushed an envelope a bit further. In some cases, it paid off while in others it didn't. AMOLAD is a story about itself and I'm not going into that one right now.

But TFF? In my opinion, the period before its release was their peak. Since 1999, Maiden has had two members back, one of them is saying "We're better than Metallica!" and they are actually making something to back that up. Quickly arenas became stadiums and Maiden had the guts to do something new 26+ years into their career and play a new album (which was also highly critically acclaimed). Then came the Somewhere Back in Time tour which became one of their best moves in their later career. After SBIT, I don't think there wasn't a single soul who could say: "Maiden don't have it." New stuff? Works. Older stuff? Gaining a horde of fans all over the world, literally. Sales? Booming. Maiden brand? Spreading throughout the world faster than this damn pandemic we're having right now. They were on top. (truth is, they're still on it, but that's a different discussion).

When they went back to the Bahamas they didn't have to prove anything to anybody. Honestly, if they called it quits after the SBIT tour, nobody could say it's because "it didn't work". Early 2010, they weren't these young guys trying to make their mark on the music scene nor were they these rock-stars who had to prove they still got it. They were seasoned musicians with 30 years of experience under their belt who damn-well know what they're doing. Like a fine wine, whose grapes were picked in the most perfect season and kept in perfect condition Maiden were only getting better with age. Anything a rock band can go through its career - Maiden have been there, done that. So where to if you're on top?

Well, you can try to remain there and meanwhile have some fun. And that's what I think TFF differentiates from all the other reunion albums - fun. In that matter, this one resembles the most on those 80s records. Time where Maiden were also on the metal frontier but didn't take themselves so seriously. Pure speculation, but that would probably result in falling into that heavy-metal-cliche-stereotype pitfalls that some bands found themselves into and have a hard job getting out. As I've said before, BNW is an accomplishment, but since they had a lot to lose, they played it safe. DOD seems like a step up in the same direction BNW headed. AMOLAD is an accomplishment, but damn, that one is all about doom and gloom. If I had to choose between two songs that I like and one of them makes me happy to be alive and listen to that song while the other is pumping my blood making me want to charge my enemy and conquer the world - I'd choose the first one.

Writing opinions about something is hard, when that something isn't tangible it's harder and when you don't have proper vocabulary it seems impossible. So I'm not sure if I'm getting my point across. What I want to picture is how effortless, yet profesional The Final Frontier sounds, the overall feel-good vibe around it, the diversity of the songs, the way they used the same formula with different ingredients and the way they went exactly opposite of that formula to come up with something that will send chills down the spine decades from now.

Sure, there are details here and there that don't sit with me or with other members on this forum well. Line here, pitch there, awful artwork, Bruce again and Janick too. But when the overall product is that good, all those little smudges don't mean a thing to me.

I love The Final Frontier.
Even 10 years after that first moment when it blew me away.
 
This has to be the best written album in the modern Maiden era. Not to mention the most experimental with the guitar work when it comes to songs like Starblind and The Man Who Would Be King. I just love this record. I get it isn't prefect but on a whole, this is a great Maiden record. I'm shocked that When The Wild Wind Blows isn't a staple in concert.
The best modern era album is Brave New World, with A Matter of Life and Death coming in close second.
 
Nomad is the best song on BNW. And yea, I think BNW gets fairly criticized. If Maiden didn’t strike a home run after Virtual XI they would’ve gotten chewed up and spit out by the press. It’s not my favorite reunion album, but it’s very good and stands right along with their 80s material.
I still highly rate Brave New World. However it would rank it at number 4 of the reunion era. IMO of Dance of Death was released on 2000 (with better mastering), it would rank higher amongst critics and fans.
 
Brave New World is a bit like Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. A decent album with some really strong songs. However like Californication, it is a ‘comeback’ album so most people swoon over it. As a result the album very rarely gets criticised by fans or the press.
I don't know, there are a LOT of hits on that one. I remember the hype when Californication music video came out (22 years have passed and the world is still waiting on that video game!!!). I don't remember the rest of the album that much, but the singles instantly became this new RHCP that people recognize today. By the way, I like By the Way more (pun intended). I also had a feeling fans liked One Hot Minute, but the critics didn't. Also, there weren't that many hit singles as on the next couple of albums.

As I've said before, BNW is filled with hits, but it's also safe whereas AMOLAD is bit experimental. I believe majority of people on this board would vote AMOLAD over BNW, but I don't think RHCP fans would vote Stadium Arcadium over Californication.
 
I like it much more now than when it was released, outside of a few songs it did not grab me the same way as AMOLAD, but I have grown to to like it more and more and think it is either 1 or 2 in my list of favorite reunion albums.
 
The best modern era album is Brave New World, with A Matter of Life and Death coming in close second.
Brave New World was the best album on the planet when it was released but the music became more interesting with each album after.
 
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