Iron Maiden – Book of Souls

Never mind the quality, feel the width. Oh, and feel the quality, too. For Iron Maiden – three lead guitarists strong, and time-served purveyors of XXL stage spectacle and ever-increasing average song length – size is everything. Book of Souls clocks in at 92 minutes. Only Maiden would play for that long and still find an excuse for added time. But this sixteenth studio album from the metal veterans sizzles with a youthful vitality.

Who'd have thought that their most ambitious, most satisfying work would take three decades to arrive? But, as evidenced by 2006's A Matter of Life and Death and its 2010 follow-up The Final Frontier, late period Maiden bears little relation to their NWOBHM beginnings. The much-vaunted 18 minute, piano-led Empire of the Clouds (one of two Bruce Dickinson solo compositions) is genuinely staggering but there are heavy thrills throughout. Anchored by both its intelligence and its musicality, Book of Souls delights in scoffing at genre expectations. It's very metal and very, very good. [Gary Kaill]