IRON MAIDEN - THE ESSENTIAL IRON MAIDEN published September 2005, Zero Magazine

Is it just me or do most best of’s start off with their first hits and go forward chronologically? It’s safe for most bands, I suppose. Here, the songs you like are first and we snuck in the new, shitty songs you don’t give a rats ass about at the end. Just please buy it. But this isn’t most bands. It’s Iron Maiden who will rock until death and not just look dead while trying to rock, much like skeletal icons Aerosmith and the Stones.

The Essential Iron Maiden’s first track is “Paschendale” off 2003’s Dance of Death. Ballsy, yes, to open up with the new shit yet hardly a gamble. It’s a statement that Iron Maiden have always made. They won’t apologize for aging. They will only apologize for sucking and it is a sorrow they will never have to express.

From this point, the collection goes backward, reminiscing with songs like “Fear of the Dark” and “Aces High” until finally reaching the trio of songs you would have to be born under a rock on Mars not to have known (since birth, in my case) “The Trooper,” “Number of the Beast,” and “Run To The Hills.” Jesus, if the opening riff of the latter doesn’t take you back to simpler times, check your pulse to see if you are still living.