IRON MAIDEN: Iron Maiden

Produced by Wil Malone

Released: 1980

Already the leading band of the so-called New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement with a UK Top 40 single behind them by early 1980, it was clear that Iron Maiden was a band with a future ahead, though no one could really have said how big. After this album appeared on April 14 that year, surely none but the foolish could have denied they had the potential to go very, very far indeed. Along with the debuts of Def Leppard and Raven, Iron Maiden is perhaps the best example of NWOBHM ever made. While the production is ordinary, even for the early 1980s, Maiden's songwriting, energy and enthusiasm blazes through with every second of the playing time.

Iron Maiden opens with the wailing dual guitars of "Prowler" and from that moment is a certifiable classic. Simply trying to get such a catchy track out of one's head in a hurry is a pointless exercise. Even this early, Iron Maiden had laid a key cornerstone for their further success: the ability to write intrinsically catchy riffs and melodies into any song regardless of how elaborate the arrangement. Few could listen to the twin harmonies immediately before and after the guitar solos in album centrepiece "Phantom of the Opera" -- the prototype for the mighty epics Maiden would later write -- and not remember them for a long, long time. Most of the tracks are deceptively unpretentious compared to many of those that would appear on later albums, but every one of them is a clear cut if a somewhat unpolished gem. Will Malone's minimalist production (the band claims he did almost nothing during the recording sessions) and Paul Di'anno's snarling vocals lends something of a raw, punkish character to proceedings, but the playing and execution is very much heavy metal. Dave Murray and Dennis Stratton trade solos with an almost deviant glee, in "Transylvania" the band lays down a blueprint that every melodic death metal act from Gothenburg would later copy and it's possible that songs like Metallica's "Fade to Black" may never have been written had it not been for "Remember Tomorrow".

Iron Maiden is undeniably one of the most important metal albums of all. Not only was it the debut for one of the genre's greatest bands but its combination of rawness, speed and melody has provided the inspiration for two generations of music fans ever since.

1. Prowler


2. Remember Tomorrow


3. Running Free


4. Phantom of the Opera


5. Transylvania


6. Strange World


7. Charlotte the Harlot


8. Iron Maiden

Rating: 90%