Unlike so many of their peers, Iron Maiden is a band who refuses to rest on their laurels. Instead, they continue to pump out “new” music when others stick to the tried and true method of playing all the hits. They proved the thunder was still there with 2015’s double slab serving of The Book of Souls. After a six-year stretch, they push the possibilities even further with Senjutsu. As with The Book of Souls, the two-disc Senjutsu (Japanese for “tactics and strategy”) isn’t so much a “heavy metal” record as it is “progressive metal” with longer, more complex arrangements laced around dark, cerebral themes.
With an arsenal of three guitarists — Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers — supported by the powerful rhythm section of bassist Steve Harris on bass and drummer Nick McBrain, Maiden’s music can’t help but come across as grand and epic in scale and execution. Senjutsu provides the proper platform for the group’s — less raw and more refined — paired with Bruce Dickinson’s commanding vocals to create exploratory, adventurous synopses that eloquently swim through Celtic-inspired riptides and undertows.
Witness to specter of “The Writing On The Wall,” that sustains a basic riff before evolving and shifting to give Dickinson space to share his unsettling messages of gloom and doom. The title track and “Stratego” both climb and surges like the best of Maiden’s anthems. Then again, “Lost In A Lost World” and “The Time Machine” may be two of the album’s more alluring tracks, cutting through the paces, flying off into a tangents that have Murray, Smith, Gers and Harris grinding for a measure or two before veering off into another fanciful direction for a joyous cataclysm of notes and noodling. Few bands can pull off this sort sleight of hand exchange as brilliantly as Iron Maiden.
Both “Darkest Hour” and “Death Of The Celts” are earth-bound, pastoral strolls with atmospheric dashes and stylish doses, designed to make you ponder the end of days with a strange mix of dread and hope. Then “The Parchment” and “Hell On Earth,” the album’s “long tracks,” lose themselves as the music jettisons off into a wondrous detour that puts the galvanized guitar onslaught of Iron Maiden into the center ring. Dickinson enunciates lyrics inspired by world events, war, peace, the apocalypse — as a collective might and strength gathers steam before galloping off into the stratosphere.
Recorded in Paris with Kevin Shirley and Steve Harris producing, Senjutsu is an ambitious undertaking for a band that already has a vast legion of fans and admirers at their disposal. You have to credit the members of Iron Maiden for not caving into nostalgia trips, and staying hungry enough to move ahead with creative expansion and untapped fountains of the imagination. A inevitable world tour behind Senjutsu, from which the band will undoubtedly pulls songs into their set list, should solidify its place as a milestone in the Iron Maiden catalog.
~ Shawn Perry
