Day One- A Matter of Life & Death

Already being a fan of Iron Maiden I realise this is a bit of a cop out. But hey, I'm in for a long, loud month so just give me this one, ok? Truth be told, I haven't had a good listen to Brucey and co for far too long. I remember being given Somewhere Back in Time by my dad when I'd just started getting into music and playing it constantly; so much so that years later, after not listening to it since then, I still remember pretty much every word. Thinking about it, Iron Maiden was always going to be the perfect place to start my metallic escapade really, it just feels like coming home.

In order to widen my palette which is, afterall, the entire point of this, I opted for an album of theirs I wasn't too familiar with: A Matter of Life and Death. I'd say that for anyone wanting to get into this genre of music, AMOLAD is a fine place to start. It's clearly a well constructed album that seems to just flow from one song to the next without becoming too heavy. The contrast in dynamics throughout the album really help to draw you into the music and Dickinson's vocals just glue the whole thing together perfectly. For someone who's had no professional vocal training, his range is insane. There's also plenty of hooks here to keep those with even the shortest of attention spans entertained. Infact, the entire thing just comes across as incredibly polished. Whether this is actuality a good thing or not is up to interpretation, but for me personally, it works.

A Matter of Life and Death is an album that completely shatters any preconceptions you may have had about metal. Contrary to popular (ignorant) belief, it's not all angry shouting and insane amounts of distortion, metal can be as riveting and finely crafted as any other artform. This is pretty much everything I love about rock, so if my experiment yields no other benefit, at least I'll have rekindled an old flame.

10/10