Stranger in a Strange Land

Maiden’s second single from Somewhere in Time once again was a Smith penned track. This time one of his heavier ones. Based around a simple yet effective main riff and a bass line which is almost too simple for Harris to play. It’s a song I always liked because it was extremely different from the rest of the album yet still immensely heavy, catchy and therefore Maiden-worthy.

Filling up this EP were two covers which earlier had been played by ‘The Entire Population of Hackney’, Nicko McBrain’s project in 1985 together with Smith and some ex-Urchin members. The FM cover ‘That Girl’ is great stadium rock and with this production it almost sounds majestic. The Marshall Fury cover ‘Juanita’ is slightly less impressive, being pretty one-dimensional, but still sounding great in the hands of Maiden. The riffs are played with such ease it’s nothing short of impressive and convincing.

‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ is definitely one of the better Maiden singles from the Dickinson-era due to the well chosen a-side and having more than one great cover.

I've always liked Iron Maiden and this song just happens to be my favourite from them. It stands out as different to me because of course you've got a quiet drum beat to start with indicating, as it does most of the time, that a great track will unfold. As it slowly fades in to the almighty riff which personally I think is just brilliant. A slower track than ones like Heaven Can Wait and Deja-Vu, tracks also on the same album, but it has a lot more power to it than those tracks. The vocals are slower allowing more time to finely tune them, and finely tuned they are. The high notes are hit without a trace of a flat start and not a single note is out of tune. As a matter of fact, it may seem strange but as the chorus says"Land of ice and snow", as you listen to the song, the guitar effects actually give the song a cold, wintery feel to it, or it could be just me.
The bass sounds semingly complacently played but the guitar solos make up for that. The playing isn't quite as thrashy or heavy as some of their older stuff, but it's a good song and it's worth a listen.