The long anticipated 16th (!) studio album of England’s most successful metal band was also the longest they released so far, along with containing the longest song they ever created. Singer Bruce Dickinson had just been declared cured from cancer the year before, probably the reason for the postponing of the release. Two of the songs are by his hand: the first and the last. I don’t like the first at all, but I think the last is the best Iron Maiden ever made: an 18 minute long symphonic metal retelling of the disaster of the British airship R101.
In 1929 the British government was working on testing rigid airships to connect long distances in the Empire. They built two: the R100 and the R101. According to the song, they were so big, the Titanic would have fit inside. Still in testing stage, it crashed in France a year later, killing 48 of its 54 crew. One should not make a contest of it, but there were more victim in this crash than seven years later with the Hindenburg. It stopped all experiments in England with the airships: the R100 was sold for scrap in 1931.
It is a long way back to Iron Maiden, but I don’t want to skip on the artwork. The triple LP is a marvel to behold, with beautiful Mexican looking artwork, with the Iron Maiden Eddie in the Temple of Doom.
