Hard 20 |
Bruce Dickinson"Tyranny Of Souls" The Air Raid Siren wails again! This is Bruce's latest solo offering and his first since rejoining Maiden. He basically continues in the vein of his last two outings, "Accident Of Birth" and "The Chemical Wedding", as well as continuing his collaboration with producer/guitarist Roy Z. As on those last two albums, Bruce and company play 100% pure straight up heavy metal on this one, that could even rival Maiden, I dare say. Bruce's voice is in top notch form form, as usual, and his golden pipes could shatter glass! Roy, meanwhile, plays some blitzing guitar, firing out riffs and solos like a musical machine gun! Songs like "Abduction", "Soul Intruder", "Kill Devil Hill", and "Power Of the Sun" are metal all the way, firing on all eights. "Devil On a Hog", meanwhile, is more of a straight ahead hard rock tune, like a heavy Foghat. "Believil" is a dark, spooky little number; the title track, while closes the album, is also on the dark side, heavy and midpaced, with some Sabbath influence. They slow things down a bit for "Navigate The Seas Of The Sun", a moody song played on acoustic guitar, kind of in the vein of the song "Journeyman", from the last Maiden album. Sorry to say this but "TOS" does have one weak link, that being "River Of No Return", which is in a gray musical area, not fast or slow, heavy or light, and I found it to be rather half baked and boring. Aside from that, Bruce, Roy, and the boys have turned out another metal masterwork here. Everything is brilliantly crafted, and the bulk of the tracks are kick ass metal tunes. If you're a Maiden fan and/or liked Bruce's last two albums, then you should dig "TOS" too. |