IRON MAIDEN — Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son (review)

IRON MAIDEN — Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son album cover Album · 1988 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Time Signature
Can I play with metal...

Genre: heavy metal

The last of Iron Maidens first golden streak of perfect albums, "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" is, as is well-known, a concept album about mysticism and esoteric philosophy, based on the folkloric myth of the seventh son of the seventh son and the special powers that are bestowed upon him.

I absolutely love this album and all the tracks on it - from the "Seven deadly sins" intro, over the keyboard-driven power opener "Moonchild" over the more poppy mega hit "Can I Play With Madness" and the epic ballad "Infinite Dream" to the dark epic title track and the melodic closer "Only the Good Die Young". Every track is full of great guitar melodies, twin leads, galloping basslines, amazing vocals and pounding drums - everything that Maiden do so well.

The opening track, as mentioned above, is a power opener, which, after the acoustic intro to the album, starts out with an energetic synth figure, and slowly builds up into a quite aggressive metal track. "Infinite Dreams" is one of my favorite Maiden tracks; it opens up a ballad with a haunting guitar melody and quite mellow vocals on top of a rather complex backdrop of music, which upon second repetition is distorted. The chorus is, of course, in a different tempo, while the bridge is an uptempo galloping affair with lots of catchy vocal patterns an twin guitars. "Can I Play With Madness" is more poppy and it is not coincidence that this track was the great hit off this album. "The Evil That Men Do" is a more straight rocker, but its vocal lines are inescapably catchy - you just can't help but singing along to this one. The title track is an epic affair along the lines of "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" with three major parts: a slow galloping one, an eerie athmostpheric one, and then a dark but upbeat one with some really atypical guitar figures (and there are lots of twin guitar sections all over the song). "The Prophecy" is one of the more obscure tracks on the album, but it's actually a quite interesting folk-inspired dark track, while "The Clairvoyant" is another major hit, with some uplifting and catchy guitar melodies. The closer "Only the Good Die Young" is another straight rocker with loads of catchy melodic things going on.

This album has been described as Iron Maiden's progressive album, I agree to some extent. I agree that it certainly is progressively inclined what with the concept storyline an all, the layers of guitars and all the time and tempo changes. But I do not think that it is THE progressive Maiden album, because the progressive mentality has been there from the very first album. But, "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" certainly is more progressive than the follow-up albums "No Prayer for the Dying" and "Fear of the Dark", both of which has a more straight rock approach to them.

Recommended to anyone who likes rock or metal!
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Stereo Grief Metalcore
GREYHAVEN (KY)
Buy this album from MMA partners
Unearthly Litanies of Despair Death Metal
ENGULFED
Buy this album from MMA partners
It Beckons Us All....... Black Metal
DARKTHRONE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Death Is Not The End Doom Metal
GLOSSA
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Way Forward Sludge Metal
BLACK TUSK
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Agremorta - Adrocitas (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 2 days ago
Agremorta - Ploratus Umbra (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 2 days ago
Agremorta - Vertex Membrana (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 2 days ago
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR - The Temple Of Curved Space (Official Track Stream)
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR
adg211288· 2 days ago
In Sulfur - The Gate (OFFICIAL VIDEO) 2022
IN SULFUR
Bosh66· 3 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed