VARIOUS ARTISTS „Numbers From the Beast – All Star Salute to Iron Maiden”

Music: Heavy Metal
Country: The World
Website: http://www.rykodisc.co.uk
Duration: 55.33


Cool Songs: Flight of Icarus, Run to the Hills, Aces High, 2 Minutes to Midnight, Fear of the Dark, Can I play with Madness?

A slight sense of Déjŕ vu here. Restless Records (a sub label of the UK’s Rykodisc) may not have the roster on Roadrunner, but they too have gone for the ‘ALL-STAR’ salute. But whereas the recent Roadrunner affair was a celebration of the label itself, Restless have stuck to the tried and true ‘Tribute’ method of honouring one of the seminal metal bands of all time – Iron Maiden. Now, this is possibly the 753rd tribute album we’ve had dedicated to the Iron’s, but the essential difference with this one is that it DOESN’T feature your regular metal bands pulling off their best cover versions. It is, as it says on the box, an ‘All-Star’ affair.

Recalling my Roadrunner United review and boldly mentioning the fact that never had so many metal icons gathered for the one cause (some 57 artists), I was a little apprehensive when I started counting the names that appear on this. Thankfully, only some 47 names are associated with ‘Numbers of the Beast’ – each and every one of them bona fide metal/hard rock names that you will recognise. Wrapping their metal mitts around 11 Maiden classics (save for ‘The Wickerman’), like the Roadrunner United release, each track features a completely different line-up and backed by some very select metal/rock vocalists.

Can I mention names? Hell, at the expense of leaving others out (for which I apologise), try on these metal luminaries – Billy Sheehan, Michael Schenker, Vinnie Appice, Scott Ian, Mikkey Dee, Nuno Bettencourt, George Lynch, Paul Gilbert, Mike Inez, Craig Goldy, Jeff Pilson and Richie Kotzen. And they’re just the musicians! I’m generally a little ambivalent about ‘tribute’ albums, but with the line-up that is featured on ‘Numbers..’ I was instantly drawn to it. Musically, I knew that most of this would smoke and certainly, for the most part anyway, all eleven tracks are faithfully reproduced whilst also adding their own ‘individual’ flair. But of course, if this was ever going to fail, it would be with the choice of vocalists.

I must admit that I enjoyed every one of these tracks and everyone will have their favourites. Vocally, there are some simply brilliant performances, while others are perhaps, a little less inspired. The most notable performances come from ‘Ripper Owens (Priest/Iced Earth)’ who just shreds on ‘The Flight of Icarus’ – in fact, if you haven’t heard this track yet, just close your eyes and imagine it – it sounds just like you think!! Matching Owens in all facets is ‘Jeff Scott Soto’ on ‘Aces High’, ‘Chuck Billy (Testament) on ‘Fear of the Dark’, ‘Joe Lynn-Turner (Purple/Rainbow)’ on ‘2 Minutes to Midnight’ and surprisingly (for me at least) the excellent ‘Robin McCauley (MSG) performance on ‘Run to the Hills’.

If there are any misses – and yes there are some unfortunately – then ‘Dee Snider (Twisted Sister)’ is perhaps a tad too raw and out of his depth on ‘Wasted Years’ and ‘Lemmy Kilmister’ simply destroys ‘The Trooper’ (no ‘whoaaa’ sections at all – nothing against Lemmy but this was a bad vocal selection). The most perplexing vocal choice goes to the selection of ‘Chris Jericho (Fozzy)’ on ‘The Evil That Men Do’ (sorry, but he just hasn’t earned the stripes to appear on this) and ‘Mark Slaughter’ on ‘Can I Play With Madness?’ – Great performance, but so un-Slaughter like really. I also have problem with original Maiden vocalist ‘Paul Di’Anno’ appearing on ‘Wrathchild’ – why? Because it smacks of underhandedness – It’s like an attempt to rekindle past glories, another reminder from Paul that, yes ‘I WAS’ and ‘STILL AM’ the original and best Iron Maiden vocalist. We’ve all got differing opinions on that, but really, did he need to appear on this?? I think not.

As far as Iron Maiden tributes go, ‘Numbers of the Beast’ is one of the better ones. The ‘All-Star’ line ups are clearly the major interest here and in terms of song choices, I’d only question the inclusion of the Jon Bush led ‘The Wickerman’. I’m not sure how difficult it is to get so many people involved in such an undertaking, but with two such releases in the past month, it looks as though the ‘All-Star’ tag may be set to spawn a thousand others….how about one from ‘Relapse; Century Media; Nuclear Blast or Earache??

note: 8.5

Tracklist

Run to the Hills
Wasted Years
Wrathchild
Flight of Icarus
Fear of the Dark
The Trooper
Aces High
2 Minutes to Midnight
Can I Play With Madness
The Evil That Men Do
The Wickerman