Maiden go slightly mystical on us and blast the charts with fiery single 'Can I Play With Madness', a stomping ballsy yet commercial rocker that, despite its almost irritable simplicity, was played to death when it came out, and , when looking back, remains a decent track, with Bruce wailing away and Harris steamrolling the basslines through the mist.Eddie the mascot may be a little disabled on the sleeve, but Maiden had really moved on here. Although I owned most of their records I wasn't a big fan but 'Seventh Son...' brought with it a true heavy metal mystery, similar in a sense to Dio's 'Dream Evil', a fantasy world of dark caves, prophet's and distant lands. 'Moonchild' provided that, its acoustic opening making way for an upbeat, keyboard featuring rocker that bleeds into the more intricate 'Infinite Dreams', but the title cut is a real epic, all ten-minutes of it which does make it a little tedious after a while, but the bravery must be commended.
Although this is very much a progressive rock record, and the last decent Maiden record, there is an air of the commercial, 'The Evil That Men Do' is an example of this, but then again, the songs were good enough to chart, despite guitarist Smith and vocalist Dickinson leaving the band shortly afterwards.
Everyone has their own favourite Maiden album, for me 'The Number Of The Beast' is magnificent, and when this record came out it wasn't as well received, but looking back it's still a quality Iron Maiden record that I can still listen to now and enjoy.
7/10
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