A Matter of Iron and Maiden.

I am listening to A Matter of Life and Death, maybe the biggest comeback Iron Maiden album in my estimations, ever. It is the story of a guy who, in the first song, says that he doesn’t want to be where he is, he’s just looking for something to care about, he’s just kind of aimless, and unhappy. And then, in the second song, we drive right into a call for war, complete with family tactics to drive it, or that’s just in the psychology, “We sailed away like our fathers before / These colours don’t run from cold bloody war,” and then song three just sounds like a fucking tank starting up, with Bruce shouting some of his most anime streaks of lightning and fire from his throat, and he shouts about them coming together “brighter than a thousand suns,” and the solos just sound like fucking machine gun fire in the middle of a battlefield. The song sounds like Bolt Thrower. Like, truly. Sounds like fucking British death metal/grindcore.

He sounds like he’s just cutting back and forth through the battlefield, describing what’s going on around him, and he just sounds kind of mean, kind of mournful, kind of angry, kind of evil. It’s probably one of his best howls, after he almost hums, “Out of the darkness,” and then just unloads: “BRIGHTER THAN A THOUSAND SUNS.” It’s really enough to make you cry, almost.

And then the next song steps in like a cowboy in a jeans shirt, and we’re off through a rolling tide of titanic odes and anthems, all of them shot through with the most sorrowful, bleak pathos that actually, somehow, works, for the entire album, they are just in it, with this one. The whole album sounds heavy and elegiac, and it all works, so, so well. More over time.