I first heard the voice of Blaze Bayley in a compilation tape that a friend lent me with a solitary Wolfsbane song. In fact for a while, Wolfsbane was one of those bands that were very cool to name drop but also a band that very few people had actually heard. Blaze off course went on to front iron Maiden and I think one of the minor tragedies of metal was Maiden’s inability to use Bayley’s voice to its full potential. Anyway, Blaze Bayley has been a busy man since his exit from the Maiden ranks. The last I heard of him was 2002s Tenth Dimension which was a solid if unspectacular collection of heavy metal songs.

The Man Who Would Not Die is Blaze’s fourth full length and it’s a pleasant surprise. The music owes a debt to early British metal and there is a slight Maiden/Priest/Dio feel here but it’s all done passionately and for the most part done well with a modern crunch to the song writing. The album starts off in quite a terrific fashion with the title song and its rampaging main riff. Good stuff and Blaze’s vocals sound quite good. He sounds pissed off and passionate. Blackmailer has an intro that sounds like the opening to Wasted Years but goes off into a very catchy main riff and groove.

Stand out tracks include the aforementioned title track which is a terrific start to the album, the melodic Smile Back at Death which has some very cool riffs and the mid-paced, ballad like While You Were Gone which also has its share of heavy moments including a very cool mid-tempo groove. Crack in the System impresses with its darker feel and slightly eastern sounding guitar lines. Samurai is a fast paced thrashy song that reminds me a bit of Wolfsbane while the bass player seems to be on a major Steve Harris trip. This is pretty much the only song on the album with an extra helping of cheese. What is a bit surprising is that there’s hardly any soloing on this album. Surprising and I was just waiting for a blazing solo on some of these songs but it just didn’t happen.

The only real downside to The Man Who Would Not Die is its length. At just over an hour and 12 songs to take in, the album has its share of slightly dull moments. Robot and At the End of the Day are two of the more iffy songs on here while Voices from the Past and The Truth is One just somehow don’t maintain the standards set by the first half of the album. It all ends well though with Serpent Hearted Man which is a kickass album closer.

Overall, The Man Who Would Not Die sounds like the call to arms from a man who has been remarkably unlucky in the music business. There’s a sense of anger and an even greater sense of self belief that permeates the songs on this album. At times I couldn’t help but sit back and just listen to this with a big stupid smile on my face simply because you know Blaze isn’t faking this. This is heavy metal like it was meant to be.