A Matter of Life and Death

Release type:What's this?
studio album
First released:
Sep 5 2006

Overview Edit

A Matter of Life and Death is the fourteenth studio album by English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. It was released on 25 August 2006 in Italy and in Finland, 28 August worldwide, and 5 September 2006 in the United States, Canada and Japan. It is the first heavy metal album to debut at #4 in India, and made it to #2 in the Indian charts. It is also one of the few rock/metal albums to go platinum in India.

It is the first album in Iron Maiden's more than 30 year career to enter the U.S. Billboard charts in the top 10 and the third album where Steve Harris has had a song writing credit on every track, and has seen significant chart success in many other countries.

While the album is not a concept album war and religion are recurring themes in the lyrics throughout the album, as well as in the album's artwork. The title is also linked with the war theme, as it shared with a 1946 film whose primary character is a WWII Royal Air Force pilot, though singer Bruce Dickinson has stated that the title and dark lyrical themes came partly from the band members' childhood experiences having grown up in the Cold War era amid common fears of imminent destruction and war.

A Matter of Life and Death Tour was the tour supporting the album.

The Overview appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Matter_of_Life_and_Death_(album). Portions of this Overview may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

This particular version Edit

Record label:
Catalog number:
0946 372321 2 5
Release dates:
  • Sep 5 2006

Genres

Classic Rock, Heavy Metal, Metal, Progressive Metal. Vote on Genres

What do Amazon.com customers think?

5 stars No Rust On These Irons
Iron Maiden still reign supreme as the absolute Kings of Metal and have since their first disk back in 1980. Now, countless releases later, A Matter of Life and Death shows that the "Colours" are not running in the slightest on the Iron Maiden Flag.

I remember back in 1999 hearing that Bruce and Adrian re-joined the band for Brave New World. That was indeed exciting news. After all, while they were out of the band they teamed up on two of Bruce's solo releases, and one of those releases, Accide…
Written by Sky
3 stars Decent songs, terrible production
Iron Maiden will never get out of their rut as long as Steve Harris is in charge of EVERYTHING. I know he is the founder and leader, but he needs somebody to tell him that is a lousy producer. Well, either Kevin Shirley is just awful, or Steve overrides him at every turn. Just listen to everything Maiden put out with Martin Birch before NPFTD. It was excellence. I cannot fathom how the guys in the band listen to what they have been putting out and actually agree that this is the best they can do…
Written by Jason "jrd"

Track listing Edit

Credits Edit

  1. design

    1. John McMurtrie [photography]
    2. Peacock [graphic design and art direction]
    3. Simon Fowler [photography]
  2. engineer

  1. performer

    1. Adrian Smith [guitar, background vocals]
    2. Bruce Dickinson [vocals]
    3. Dave Murray [guitar]
    4. Janick Gers [guitar]
    5. Nicko McBrain [drums]
    6. Steve Harris [bass, background vocals, keyboards]
  2. producer

Other versions Edit

A Matter of Life and Death 10 tracks format: 1 x CD
catalog number: 0946 372321 2 5
release dates: 2006 in Europe
view details
A Matter of Life and Death 10 tracks format: 1 x CD
catalog number: 0946 372321 2 5
release dates: 2006 in Europe
view details
A Matter of Life and Death 10 tracks format: 1 x CD
catalog number: 0946 372321 2 5
release dates: 2006 in Europe
view details
A Matter of Life and Death 11 tracks format: 2 x CD
record label: Sanctuary Records
release dates: Sep 5 2006
view details
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