Reviews list for Iron Maiden - Virtual XI (1998)

Under 3-minute tracks have been completely absent from Iron Maiden’s discography since the sophomore Killers, and never appeared again henceforth, but this album opens with one in “Futureal” and makes me think the band should have done a lot more like this. The song is full of energy, great guitarwork, and every second is filled with that classic Maiden sound, albeit on a bit of a speed rush. The following song, at almost 10 minutes, is the polar opposite; there aren’t enough good ideas there to fill 3 minutes, nevermind 10. The lack of speed and repetitive vocal lines only make this more noticeable. “Don’t you think I could save you” repeated about 96 times in a row really grates on you.

Virtual XI is a very interesting Iron Maiden album, in that it does some things perfectly and in other areas it falls completely flat. The album brought back keyboards and Iron Maiden’s signature epic sound, and by all means, sounds closer to their peak 80’s material than just about anything they’d done since. The problem is, there is something wrong with most of these compositions. Take a one-minute snapshot of any song here, and it sounds like classic Maiden, like it could be dropped into any of their 80’s material and fit right at home. But the songs as a whole, often suffer from being bloated, repetitive, or simply not going anywhere over their long runtime. Everything sounds a bit stale.

Now of course, some songs avoid this. Aforementioned opener is a fantastic track, and “Don’t Look to the Eyes of a Stranger” is an example of the band killing the more progressive, lengthy song format. The return of keys really adds a nice layer whenever they show up. The drumming is also pretty good across this album, but especially in the more energetic tracks.

Lastly, we’ve got to talk about the vocals. Blaze Bayley replaced Bruce on the prior album, and since that album was in quite a different style, the new vocals didn’t really stand out since everything else sounded a bit different too. Here, the songs all go back to the band’s older style… but missing Bruce. Blaze is a fine singer, but his range is far, far more limited than Bruce’s. These songs needed Bruce’s higher, more powerful range to achieve true hooks for the choruses and verses. Blaze unfortunately is passable and nothing more, with very few vocal parts here delivering anything too memorable or catchy.

With all of that being said, I find this album profoundly underrated. It has issues, sure, but it still sounds a lot like the band’s peak material, so if you love that, I really can’t grasp at how you couldn’t at least like this. I feel part of it is just the unfair comparisons. It’s basically just sub-par classic Iron Maiden, but even that should be enough to warrant pretty high marks from most people considering the quality of the band. Go into it with an open mind and I think you will be rewarded.

1995’s “The X Factor” was nothing short of a complete disaster for Iron Maiden. They really needed to get off to a flying start with new vocalist Blaze Bayley but not only was his performance very ordinary but the band seemed to completely lose their direction & song-writing ability. It was really quite amazing. I couldn’t have imagined the band could descend to such a low point so quickly. Subsequently when it came to the follow-up (with Bayley still behind the mike) I was not exactly expecting miracles.  

And I’m glad I didn’t alright because “Virtual XI” is about as far from a miraculous return to form as you can possibly get. I didn’t imagine that there was any way that they could put out something worse than “The X Factor” but if that was their goal then they succeeded with flying colours. There is so much wrong with this record that I don’t even know where to begin. Why don’t we start with the production which is nothing short of dreadful. How a band of the stature of Iron Maiden can release something that sounds so bad is beyond me. I can only assume that they sent the wrong masters to the manufacturers & didn’t discover their error before it was too late. Then we have another pedestrian vocal performance by Bayley who is quite simply not up to the job of singing for Iron Maiden. It was never gonna work. On top of that you add some of the poorest song-writing I’ve ever heard from a major metal band & you've got a complete clanger of an album.  

Opener “Futureal” is very much in the format of your classic Maiden opening track. It’s a driving, galloping call to arms that reminds you of past openers like “Tailgunner”. Unfortunately it’s well below par & the production doesn’t help but you can see what they were trying to do. Then there’s “The Clansman” which is an attempt to revisit their more epic direction & you can imagine that it might actually sound good with a decent sound & Bruce on vocals but in its current format it just doesn’t cut the mustard. The rest of the album is a total abortion. “The Angel & The Gambler” (which sounds fars too much like Status Quo for its own good) & “Don’t Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger” are horrible songs as it is without needlessly extending them with Blaze repeating the same line over & over & over again. The chorus of “Lightning Strikes Twice” is unbelievably crap. There are obscure synth stab sounds at various times throughout the album that seem totally out of place. Closing ballad “Como estais amigos” may be the cheesiest & weakest thing the band has ever done. I can keep going too. It’s really that bad.  

“Virtual XI” is quite easily one of the worst albums I’ve ever heard from a major metal band. I truly struggle to see why anyone would bother with it when there is so much great music out there. At least things could only get better from here though I suppose.