Title - 'Somewhere Back in Time: The Best of 1980-1989'
Artist - Iron Maiden
Based on the setlist for Maiden’s current revisionist history tour, and for the kind of elaborate live extravaganzas they were conquering the world with circa 1985’s World Slavery jaunt, this part-live, part-studio album blazes from the get-go. There’s still something cheerily cheesy about the “We will fight them on the beaches…” Winston Churchill intro tape, but when the live version of ‘Aces High’ kicks in you can’t help buy right into this heavy metal tourist board version of Englishness, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith’s guitar-lines duelling like Spitfires and Messerschmitts in the skies over Kent in 1940.
Early classics from the Paul Di’Annio-fronted Iron Maiden appear solely in Bruce Dickinson live renditions, and there’s no ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’, but everything from 1989’s weak ‘Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter’ (and amazingly still their only Number One single) onwards has been thankfully omitted. But really this is just an album-length advert for the excellent live show which Maiden have spent more than 30 years honing and perfecting.
Indeed, Maiden's 'Somewhere Back in Time World Tour 2008' kicked off in India, then moved through Australia, Japan, and South America before finding its way here to the U.S. ... where it's making its way from coast to coast and hitting Canada in-between. Then at the end of June they'll head over to conquer Europe as well.