Alright! I’m excited to announce that we’re welcoming our first guest writer to this section. I won’t lie to you; in my opinion, this is a hot take. So, kill each other with kindness in the comments. Anyway, go give Elyna Kahn a follow, or even better, check out her Patreon. Enough from me, I leave you in her hands.
It’s 1998. Auckland faced the longest blackout in its history: 36 hours without electricity, affecting 6,000 people. During this time, the “Mozilla” and “Google” browsers were released just a few months apart. 1998 also marked a turning point in Power Metal music. Several essential albums of the genre were released: Return to Heaven Denied by Labyrinth, Symphony of Enchanted Lands by Rhapsody, Oceanborn by Nightwish, Legacy of Kings by Hammerfall, Fireworks by Angra, and Destiny by Stratovarius. Alongside this amazing batch, another significant album was released: Virtual XI, the 11th album by Heavy Metal legends Iron Maiden and the second and last with the great Blaze Bayley as frontman.
Musically, Virtual XI returned to a more melodic line, moving away from the dark tone of The X Factor. The structure of the songs is primarily a 4/4 time signature at a medium to fast tempo, featuring velvety and galloping riffs, along with catchy vocal lines and choruses. However, it is the depth and warmth in Blaze’s voice that gives it a magical, friendly aura. Both Virtual XI and The X Factor were complex albums, but not just musically. The challenge for the band and Blaze Bayley was creating music in the shadow of Bruce Dickinson. Replacing Bruce Dickinson, the ultimate frontman, was a major challenge for any singer. Blaze, with a totally different vocal timbre, range, and stage presence, took on this challenge, transitioning from the relatively unknown Wolfsbane to become the frontman of Iron Maiden, marking an iconic era.
Virtual XI is a divisive album—you either love it or hate it. For many fans, it is a cult classic, while for others, Blaze Bayley’s era is unbearable. Blaze himself knew this, as many hated him before and after his time with Iron Maiden, simply “for not being Bruce.” However, my story with Virtual XI is special. It came into my hands as the prize of a completely random contest one afternoon while I was with my eldest daughter, who was only 18 months old. In fact, she met and then became a fan of the band thanks to Virtual XI.
I had joined a friend who was rehearsing a contest as part of an exam for his film studies. The prize was Virtual XI. I played, and I won. Upon receiving my award, the cover deeply caught my attention; a guy connected to his VR goggles while a sinister Eddie seemed to pull his strings like a puppet. Was it a premonition, perhaps? In Chile that same year, mobile phone service operations began, and a few years later, the internet would arrive on mobile devices—and we all would end up being addicted to the web.
Virtual XI was the second Iron Maiden album I listened to entirely after Fear of the Dark. And I loved it! Even more curiously, Blaze, alongside Steve and Dave, composed my three favorite tracks: “Futureal,” “When Two Worlds Collide,” and the moving “Como estais amigos?”
In the end, I think that the random arrival of Virtual XI into my hands—alongside my limited knowledge about Iron Maiden at the time—allowed me to appreciate it without any prejudice, freely and without pressure to demonstrate to anyone how “true” a fan of Maiden I was. It was just me and a lovely album with catchy lyrics, music, and a great singer, very different from Dickinson but with a powerful, deep voice that brought life to beloved classic tracks. Moreover, the fact that Bruce Dickinson himself included “The Clansman” and “Futureal” in the set list for the Dance of Death and Legacy of The Beast tours, and even at Rock in Rio, provides substantial evidence of the relevance of this album in the history of Iron Maiden.
Beyond all controversy, Virtual XI is authentic, fresh, free, without great pretensions, and above all, brave. As brave as Blaze Bayley was when he joined his favorite band to take his hero’s place, even facing many people against him—some sort of David-against-Goliath; a huge and perhaps overly devoted to Dickinson fandom that struggled to accept another voice in Iron Maiden.
Even I have received hate from these “true” fans when giving my opinion about this album and the Bayley era. It doesn’t matter; Virtual XI is an endearing album to which you can approach freely without any pressure or expectations, letting it speak the only language that matters in the end: the magic of music and its subjectivity.
Label: EMI
Release date: 23 March, 1998
Website: https://www.facebook.com/ironmaiden/
Country: UK
Score: Elyna didn’t give one, so you’re left with your thoughts own again…
Metal Eclipse Reviews 