A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death is the fourteenth album on which Iron Maiden binds weighty multi-guitar harmony, long song construction and heavy themes of war and faith. Bruce Dickinson’s singing advances as if telling a story, and Steve Harris’s bass constantly carries the whole powerfully forward. It is a record on which late Maiden’s epic quality deepens. From the drive of the opener “Different World” and the dashing “These Colours Don’t Run” to the grandeur of the near-ten-minute epic “For the Greater Good of God” and “The Longest Day” and “Brighter Than a Thousand Suns,” every song is weighty and engaging. A construction that values the tension and afterglow rising across the whole album, over flashy single songs, is a major distinction. The record’s depth lies in how mature Iron Maiden powerfully sounds a grand scale and the human unease war brings at once. Not drifting to easy accessibility, it earnestly faces serious themes. Centered on long pieces, it is a sturdy, weighty, ambitious work representative of late Iron Maiden — a record to face carefully.