Album Review: 35 Years of Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

It was on April 11, 1988 that Iron Maiden released their seventh studio album which was christened Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, which would be the band’s first concept album.

The use of synthesizers had given them good results 2 years earlier with Somwhere In Time, so the band ventured to continue experimenting for this album, and the result was tremendous.

In Bruce Dickinson’s words, the band decided not to hire any keyboardist so the synthesizers that we hear along the 8 tracks that compose the album were made by the own fingers of the Maiden musicians.

Moonchild opens this album in a monstrous way with an intro that comes from the bottom up to make our ears explode with an epic entrance, the second piece Infinite Dreams seems to slow down the pace a little, however the chorus is full of fury, the duo of Adrian Smith and Dave Murray working perfectly, as well as Nicko McBrain’s drums that has a fresher and more polished air than their previous work.

Bruce Dickinson’s vocals are more mature and he tells us the story of the seventh of a seventh son who seeks to fight against evil with the help of supernatural gifts, as we can hear in The Clairvoyant which has a sublime bass intro, which at least to me reminds me of Killers.

Iron Maiden’s seventh album is considered by both critics and fans as one of their best works of their entire career, which served to demonstrate that synthesizers could work perfectly well in a heavy metal band and not only with glam and AOR bands. The title track is an auditory and enigmatic ceremony that hypnotizes you from the first second of the song, shaping a dark ceremony of almost 10 minutes long.

Here would also end a stage of Maiden since a year after the release, Adrian Smith would leave the band due to musical differences, however his hand would be marked in this album that is undoubtedly one of the best metal works of the 80’s.