IRON MAIDEN A Matter Of Life And Death CD (2006)

The album Iron Maiden made when they stopped caring about radio play and started writing about war, mortality, and the machinery of death. Which is to say, this is peak Maiden.

A Matter of Life and Death came out in 2006 and immediately divided opinion, which is usually a sign that a band is doing something right. It runs long, it's dense, and it asks you to sit with it rather than just throw on the hits. Steve Harris and Bruce Dickinson leaning into progressive structures, Kevin Shirley's production giving it real weight. The band toured it by playing it front to back, no filler, no compromise, which upset some fans and made others feel seen for the first time in years. For Your Life, The Longest Day, The Legacy, this is heavy metal that takes itself seriously without losing the energy. Revisionist history has been kind to it and the people who got it first are smug about that.

Format: CD. Full length studio album. Released 2006. Country of origin: UK. Genre: NWOBHM, Heavy Metal, Progressive Metal.

Fans of: Judas Priest, Dio, Accept, Motörhead.