By the numbers of the Beast - A review of Iron Maiden's The Book of Souls: Live Chapter

The blandly titled The Book of Souls: Live Chapter is another entry in Iron Maiden's lengthy list of live records. This album goes back to the rather infamous A Real Dead One and A Real Live One records from the nineties as it features songs from different concerts recorded during the tour for the successful last studio record The Book of Souls. The goal is to appeal to fans around the world who might buy this release because they were present during the recording of a particular song which is also my personal case because I attended the group's show in Montreal. The downside is that such a compilative effort doesn't recapture the atmosphere, flow and spirit of a real concert. The video of the show released on the internet even shows how certain members of the group mysteriously switch guitars three times in a few seconds within the same song or how the first row in front of the stage includes a set of completely different characters from one moment to another. The audio version manages to hide the flaws of this patchwork but the atmosphere on this release can't be compared to Live After Death or Rock in Rio.

Let's focus on the performances instead. All eyes were on singer Bruce Dickinson during this tour who had defeated cancer between the recording sessions of the studio album and the beginning of the tour. He who might be the best heavy metal singer of all times deserves our respect because he sounds as charismatic, energizing and skilled as ever and even better than at certain moments in the past. Having attended a show of the tour myself, I can confirm that he really nailed his performances and that there weren't too many things that got polished in the process of this live album's production. The instrumental work is solid as usual but maybe a little bit too slick. I would have liked a few more differences between the studio versions and the live versions.

Some Iron Maiden tracks work much better live than the studio versions because they sound more atmospheric, direct and organic. This is for example the case for the Blaze Bayley records as well as the efforts of the early millennium. Other tracks have a very specific atmosphere on their respective studio records which can't be quite reproduced on stage. This might be the case for the charismatically produced Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son records. The Book of Souls: Live Chapter is the first case where studio and live versions sound pretty much identical. ''Death or Glory'' remains a bland rocker by the numbers while the eerie ''If Eternity Should Fail'' keeps its mysterious atmosphere. ''Speed of Light'' still sounds like a solid copy of ''El Dorado'' while ''The Great Unknown'' is another exchangeable gloomy tune with an overlong introduction. ''The Book of Souls'' is still one of the weakest title tracks in the history of Iron Maiden while ''The Red and the Black'' is somehow fun despite its predictability. To keep it short, if you own the last studio album, you don't really need this live album. Only purchasing the live album would be a mistake as well, since you would miss out on the emotional half ballad ''Tears of a Clown'' and the elegant epic ''Empire of the Clouds''. Even though ''Tears of a Clown'' and ''Hallowed Be thy Name'' have been played during the first few legs of the tour, they weren't included on The Book of Souls: Live Chapter. In the latter case, a lawsuit related to copyright claims might be the reason behind the omission but there isn't any obvious reason for the exclusion of one of the last studio record's highlights.

Concerning the classics, this release mostly delivers the usual suspects. Personally, I don't need another version of ''Wrathchild'', ''The Trooper'' and ''The Number of the Beast''. I would have prefered one or two surprises in form of songs that were rarely or never played live before. At least, this album offers a vivid rendition of the atmospheric epic ''Powerslave'' and a dynamic conclusion with a tight rendition of ''Wasted Years''. The set list is satisfying for occasional fans but faithful supporters don't get a lot to chew on aside of the tracks from the last studio effort.

The Book of Souls: Live Chapter isn't a bad live record by any means. The production is authentic and the performances are stellar but it fails to be as atmospheric and outstanding as any other regular live release of the band in the last twenty years. By Iron Maiden's high standards, The Book of Souls: Live Chapter is a good average effort at best. It's for collectors and fans only.

Final rating: 70%