Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden (1980)

(originally posted on Facebook)

Iron Maiden by Iron Maiden is an early 80s heavy metal album. I would like to say it shows, but it sorta does and sorta doesn't. The rock is really cheesy like most rock in the 80s was. But this album isn't overproduced enough to fit into the hair metal genre. The production is actually quite stripped down and raw, even more so than Black Sabath was a decade prior. The music has pretty hard licks and a dark theme. On the one hand it's very minimalist- the whole album sounds like a bunch of guys playing in their garage. There isn't a lot of attempt to make the instruments gel together to create a harmoneous song. On the other hand I like the complexity of the music quite a bit. "Phantom of the Opera" is a solid rocker with sections of varying composition. In general the songs keep up the energy which makes this album almost enjoyable. It could have used a bit more variance in the arrangements to be truly epic, but not a bad first effort for Iron Maiden. 3 stars.