Band:	Iron Maiden
Album:	The Final Frontier
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	August 2010

01. Satellite 15... The Final Frontier
02. El Dorado
03. Mother Of Mercy
04. Coming Home
05. The Alchemist
06. Isle Of Avalon
07. Starblind
08. The Talisman
09. The Man Who Would Be King
10. When The Wild Wind Blows

An album that skirts the title of worst album in Iron Maiden discography by fortune of existing in a world where Dance of Death exists, The Final Frontier is a well-intentioned album that seems stuck on autopilot for the most of its running time, bravely going where the band had not gone before... mediocrity. If you want a quick and concise description of this album, think "The Angel And The Gambler" in seven new guises!

Hubris is the downfall of this album, turning what could have been ok tracks into overly long and boring tangents. Iron Maiden can pull off grandiose epics like it's child's play, but on here, the epics are sections repeated several times unnecessarily, running far too long without ever that great to begin with. The idiom "you can never have too much of a good thing" is proven wrong here, with tracks like "The Man Who Would Be King" a prime example of this. Having too many verses and choruses, the song hints that it could go somewhere interesting before flipping 180 and throwing another verse at you. It becomes bland and repetitive far too quickly.

This is a reoccurring theme for most of the album, with songs like "Mother Of Mercy" and "Coming Home", not pleased at failing to catch you on the first go, circling back several times in the hope Stockholm syndrome has taken effect. Rather than try to work their way into your head by going somewhere good, they bludgeon you repeatedly in the vain hope of endearing themselves to you.

It is ironic then that the two best songs on the album show how the band could have saved the rest. "The Alchemist" highlights what happens when you condense and focus a track down to the essentials rather than bloating it out. "When The Wild Wind Blows" offers the reverse, allowing a song to explore different areas, taking the listener on a journey while advancing the song, rather than throwing back to another arbitrary verse that offers no progression. Had the rest of the album followed the examples of these two songs, The Final Frontier would be one of the better albums by the band.

The worst part of all this is that the band are highly talented, everything is played well and sounds great; it's that they don't know when to stop. The best compliment I can give The Final Frontier is that it is the best sounding bad album by a band I've heard. Sure, Dickinson's voice is showing wear and tear, but it's still enjoyable and capable of fulfilling its role.

Iron Maiden take the saying 'don't bore us, get to the chorus' and flip it on it's head; this album should be branded with 'stop boring us with the chorus'. A well intentioned mistake, it's one that deserves only occasional spins.