The Final Frontier
- Vocals: Bruce Dickinson
- Guitar: Dave Murray
- Guitar: Adrian Smith
- Guitar: Janick Gers
- E -Bass: Steve Harris
- Drums: Nicko McBrain
The Final Frontier (English for " The Final Frontier " ) is the 15th studio album by the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden. It was released on August 13, 2010 in Europe and on August 17, 2010 in North America. Producer of the album was again Kevin Shirley, co-producer, Steve Harris. The lyrics deal mainly themes from science fiction. The average maturity of the pieces with almost eight minutes, the longest ever in the band's history. The artwork of the cover is by Melvyn Grant, who also coordinated for the artwork of Fear of the Dark, Virtual XI and Death on the Road.
Formation
After completion of the tour activities in 2009, the band members retreated to work separately on ideas for new songs. In November and December 2009, the musicians found a three-week songwriting session together in Paris, while most of the new material was born. After the turn of the year 2009/2010 the band went into the Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas to first rehearse the songs and then start recording. During this time other songs, including The Alchemist, as well as a majority of the lyrics created. After about two weeks, the base tracks all the instruments and the vocals were recorded. After the guitar tracks were overdubbt, the final mixing began in The Cave Studio in Los Angeles. There, Bruce Dickinson took on the last vocal passages, because he had not finished writing the lyrics in the Bahamas in part. Overall, Iron Maiden was a month earlier than planned with the work on the album.
Title list
Success
The album peaked in the first week of release in 23 countries # 1 on the album charts. In Germany they rose 24 August 2010 at number 1 in the Media Control charts.
Reviews
Eduardo Rivadavia of Allmusic noted that Iron Maiden with the album is closer to the artistic legacy of their triumphant 2000 reunion than with the two previous albums. The band show that they have understood to give all the fans what they want and expect. Yan bird of laut.de sees the album " somewhere between self-reference and innovation and cliché and Trade Mark ". While waiting for all titles with "cool ideas ", but partly displayed musical lengths. The online magazine whiskey - soda.de characterizes the music as " great melancholic melodies in a framework of classic metal and progressive rock, loosened by the Riffrock old school ", which will be better with each listening. Critical of Robert Fröwein by the Austrian online magazine stormbringer.at the album, describing it as " lukewarm [n ] infusion of much stronger, more meaningful predecessor ", for the "greatest metal band on the planet" is not the album well enough.