Iron Maiden - Visions of the Beast
Sanctuary, Metal Is
Heavy Metal

Release year: 2003
Iron Maiden, Sanctuary, Metal Is
Reviewed by Ben

Finally, a release that all Iron Maiden fans have been asking for is here at last! Visions of the Beast is a massive two disc DVD set that is over three hours long and contains every single Iron Maiden video ever made, from Women in Uniform to live cuts from Rock in Rio, this has it all. Now some people out there are gonna accuse Maiden of rehashing their catalog and accuse them of being nothing but a second Kiss in terms of merchandising. To some point I can see how it is ludicrous to re-release your catalog twice in four years and have another greatest hits compilation (but in all fairness Edward the Great was touted as a releases NOT FOR long time fans but for newbies, hell the band even put up the artwork on their site so you could download it if you wanted to without having to buy the album) but this, this is a high quality grade A Iron Maiden release. Visions of the Beast comes in a double digipak format with some cool Eddie pics on the inside and a nice slipcase. No booklet, but the content itself more than makes up for that small misstep.

When you pop in disc one the first thing you get is a really cool animated intro to the dvd and you know that this has had a LOT of time invested in it and isn’t a “Let’s slap this out to suck some more money out of the fans” type of release. The videos on disc one cover the classic years of the band from their ill advised cover of Women in Uniform to Tailgunner from No Prayer for the Dying. It’s pretty cool to see the band evolve from their early years to the lean, mean, Maiden machine of their Powerslave and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son days. The videos are pretty much typical 80’s video concepts, performance pieces with odd film footage interspersed between shots of the band but they work well for the band. Also its fun to see how the band went from very minimalist stage set ups to the grandiose huge elaborate backdrops of the Somewhere in Time tour, hard to believe they went from Rod Smallwood in an Eddie mask to having a huge twenty foot Eddie head joining them on stage.

Disc two, while containing what some people call the “wasted years” of the band has the least seen promo clips which was a treat for this reviewer. Also included are two live videos from Donnington ’92, Fear of the Dark and Hallowed be thy Name. After those two we come to the Blaze Bayley years. Now let me set the record straight. It is in this reviewers opinion that the Blaze era was quite a quality and productive era and I think that The X Factor has some of Maiden’s best and horribly underrated songs EVER. The videos from this album are Man on the Edge and Lord of the Flies with the latter having some shots of the middle east and its share of crazy fans. Also sandwiched between those two is a live performance of Afraid to Shoot Strangers with Blaze on vocals (this version is the one taken from the Best of the Beast compilation) which is cool cos I thought that this particular version of the song was quite powerful. Virus, while being an ok song is just a bland video, all it is is the band playing and a gratuitous use of extreme close-ups by the cameraman. Another mention must be given to the clip of The Angel and the Gambler a CGI video with a very entertaining concept. While not the best of songs, this edit version flies by as the video keeps you watching from the very beginning until the end. After this we go through four more videos ending with Brave New World from Rock in Rio. All in all this was a very entertaining viewing.

I can completely and wholeheartedly recommend Visions of the Beast to every single Iron Maiden fan on the planet. Other than the huge amount of official videos there are several animated Camp Chaos versions of classics and alternate version of other videos found in the many easter eggs throughout the DVD. This is about as good as a package that you can get. I have heard some people complain about the lack of band segments, no interviews etc but you know what? That’s not the reason this was made. This is to the point and I can’t imagine it any other way. If you are an Iron Maiden fan and have always wanted their videos for your own viewing pleasure then by all means pick this up. It is very affordable (I picked it up for 15 dollars US. Now for a two DVD set that is a VERY good deal) and well worth it.

Killing Songs :
seeing all the videos, classic and rare
Ben quoted no quote
Other albums by Iron Maiden that we have reviewed:
Iron Maiden - Senjutsu reviewed by Goat and quoted 60 / 100
Iron Maiden - The Book of Souls reviewed by Goat and quoted 73 / 100
Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier reviewed by Goat and quoted 83 / 100
Iron Maiden - Flight 666 DVD reviewed by Goat and quoted no quote
Iron Maiden - Killers reviewed by Thomas and quoted CLASSIC
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