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In 2003, DANCE OF DEATH became the thirteenth album released by Iron Maiden. The entire tracklist includes:
1.Wildest Dreams
2.Rainmaker
3.No More Lies
4.Montsegur
5.Dance of Death
6.Gates of Tomorrow
7.New Frontier
8.Paschendale
9.Face in the Sand
10.The Age of Innocence
11.Journeyman
Dance of Death is probably the most controversial album of Iron Maiden so far, and this in several aspects. The first thing that can be noticed, like every time a new album is released, is the cover. This particular cover, realised by an unknown artist, has been the subject of many arguments among the fans, and this even long before the album was officially released and anyone had a chance to listen to its actual content. Deemed ugly and unworthy of an Iron Maiden cover by many fans, it has caused more polemic than the cover of The X Factor, which also constituted a radical change from Riggs's artwork, and that marked the end of an era – that of the Maiden–Riggs collaboration.
Although Eddie is still present – albeit in a slightly different form than Riggs would have painted him – he is surrounded by computer-generated characters that shocked many fans when the cover was unveiled. Eddie himself is depicted as Death, which gives a strange déjà -vu impression. Isn't Death also portrayed on every Children of Bodom album cover? As for the weird cgi people surrounding Eddie, the controversy has arisen prior to the release of the album. Did Iron Maiden give a fake preview of the Dance Of Death cover in order to mock the hordes of fans that regularly check the Internet for an exclusive peep at the cover of the future album? Many fans couldn't believe that Maiden was actually going to release an album with such an untypical (and, let's say it, ugly) cover. These computer-generated characters are not even done properly: if you look closely, the "cgi woman" in the foreground has something horribly wrong with her neck and the rest of her articulations, also the baby's backside is not even actually touching the white wolf, and there are many other details do not quite match with a correctly made picture. Only the background, with the shrouded monks, indicates that some real artistry has taken place during the design of the cover – sadly to be mainly occulted by the foreground characters.
The cover, although it is not mentioned in the credits, was made by David Patchett, the artist behind the Cathedral covers. Reportedly, Patchett's cover only included Eddie and the monks, but Rod thought it was really empty, so he hired someone from ironmaiden.com to design the characters surrounding Eddie using the programme Poser. Then, he gave the roughs back to Patchett and asked him to work on the skin and mask textures. Patchett did so but was unimpressed with the result and asked not to be included in the credits. The masks used on the Dance of Death cover were made by Goblin Art, a company based in Portland, Oregon. Although they bear a striking similarity with those that can be seen in Kubrick's 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut, Goblin Art never provided the masks for the film.
The official explanation given by Bruce about the album cover was that the cgi characters belong to Patchett as well, but he only gave them to Maiden as a rough, and they said they didn't want him to work on it anymore, because they "liked the vibe".
The CD booklet, on the other hand, contains some good surprises in the form of the originality of the pictures within. Photographer Simon Fowler has portrayed the members of the band with some ghostly figure dancing around them. It is plain for all to see that the figure in question is an almost naked woman wearing a mask. These pictures make a refreshing change from those of the previous album, Brave New World, were the band looked like they were terminally ill or beyond all tiredness. The erotic element is also a new aspect of the band, linking Death and Lust as it was in the infamous works of the Marquis de Sade. This erotism is not echoed in the lyrics of the songs on the album, though, and Sade doesn't seem to have been of any inspiration for the compositions. The whole feel of the booklet, however, is very reminiscent of the 1999 darkly erotic film Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999), complete with the masks whose eyes are always wide open – but never see anything.
This album is not by any means a concept album, but the central theme of Death is recurrent in one form or another. From the necessity to live life to its full in 'Wildest Dreams' or the urge to make things right in 'Rainmaker', to the thoughts of someone who know his time is up in 'No More Lies'. The band also proposes a detour into the minds of those who had a close encounter with Death, like this strange surreal meeting with the undead in 'Dance Of Death', or the remisniscence of centuries-old death in 'Montségur', or, closer again, the head-on crash with the absolute horrors of war in 'Paschendale'. There are of course a few off-topic songs, like 'New frontier', that deals with the manipulations of life, or songs pointing out the sorry state of the world today – a subject dear to Steve Harris – like in 'Face In The Sand' and 'Age Of Innocence'. There is even what seems to be a criticism of the "Internet Generation" in 'Gates Of Tomorrow', with the allusion to the World Wide Web and the worry that it may represent our only future.
Only 'Journeyman' stands out as an uncharacteristic Iron Maiden song. This is the first time that the band records a fully acoustic song, and they did a great job of it. Some will comment that it is an attempt to reach a broader audience, like Metallica did with 'Nothing Else Matters', but I beg to disagree here. 'Journeyman' is an acoustic piece like only Iron Maiden could create, and they certainly remained true to themselves. On the other hand, if it can introduce other people – who would otherwise dismiss them – to Maiden's music and act as a gateway to the fantastic sound of this band, I certainly cannot complain. After all, more fans means more great albums to come.
All in all, it can be said that Dance Of Death is a pretty excellent Iron Maiden album, albeit uneven in the quality of the songs it contains, and that it has its place in Maiden's career alongside with some of the albums of the Golden Era. Many older fans will complain that there is nothing really new and ground-breaking here, but the band cannot release a Piece Of Mind or a Powerslave every time they put an album out on the market. With Dance Of Death, they have done a brilliant Metal album that will still please some of the older generations, while introducing the newer fans to the world of Iron Maiden's great music in an even better way than Brave New World had already done.
