The underrated art of music videos: A review of Iron Maiden's Visions of the Beast

Aside the splendid concert movie and documentary Flight 666, Visions of the Beast is the only DVD released by British heavy metal veterans Iron Maiden which I own and consider worthy of attention. I prefer to listen to live records rather than watching lengthy concert films, so a DVD release needs to offer something special to make me consider purchasing it. This certainly is the case here.

The reasons are quite simple. This release offers value for money with two discs, forty-one clips and nearly four hours of entertainment.

The music videos in chronological order help discover or revisit the band's career from first steps such as the short and energetic ''Wrathchild'' to more ambitious epics with progressive notes like ''Infinite Dreams'' and then from transitional and experimental efforts such as ''Virus'' to the band's current era as a sextet with ''Brave New World''.

This release also includes some tracks that can't be found on regular studio albums such as the underrated Skyhooks cover ''Women in Uniform'', a live version of ''Afraid to Shoot Strangers'' featuring Blaze Bayley who does an absolutely splendid job and the short version of ''The Angel and the Gambler'' that is much more concise, energetic and memorable than the longer album version.

This release also has a few minor flaws. The music videos Iron Maiden has made are often poor efforts that consist of concert footage interwoven with some footage from a history channel as it's the case for ''The Trooper''. The new Camp Chaos versions of different songs are filler material as the space on the discs could have been used for more live footage or perhaps a look behind the scenes of different records and music videos.

Still, anyone who wants to discover Iron Maiden as well as any true fan who desires to revisit the band's career in an entertaining way, should get her or his hands on this release. The cover artwork and slipcase rate this output up as it looks wonderful in any collection. Iron Maiden hasn't produced too many music videos in recent years anymore but I would certainly encourage and purchase a second part of this output covering the releases from the new version of the Run to the Hills single and the Dance of Death record onwards.