Review by Adam M on September 19, 2026.

This was an excellent album that further progressed the style the band was going for on early offerings and showed them to have a distinctly middle-eastern style at times as well.  It is very interesting and has some epic tracks like “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.  It is very pristine and memorable and fits nicely into the early stages of their discography.

The musicianship is very good with a lot of nice solos and melodic moments with the guitars having a great impact on the music.  There is a ton of emphasis on the Egyptian vibe the band is going for and this makes things interesting.  The songs are crisp and well performed and this is one of the most memorable albums they have with tracks like “Aces High”.

The problem with the disc is that the two preceding ones are perhaps better and this leads this to being slightly less impactful and interesting.  It is still one of the greatest albums the band has produced and has many and interesting moment.  There is very little to dislike and the whole thing is well performed and thoughtful.

The overall impact of the album is felt through the excellent musicianship and this leads the work to being one of the best the band has done and very thoughtful and compelling as well.  There is little to dislike here and the Egyptian aspect of the work makes it ones of their best.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review by Chad on January 21, 2020.

The first signs of Iron Maiden just starting to flirt with more progressive song structures begins precisely right here on 1984's Powerslave. Surprisingly, it happens to be my favorite Iron Maiden album to date, despite not exactly liking this trend of the band becoming ever more progressive. They've had their moments with epics such as "The Clansman" and "Ghost of the Navigator", but I find the majority of Iron Maiden's more "mature" works to be obnoxious and dull, it would be borderline pretentious if I wasn't already aware of what the band has the potential to do. To put it plainly, the band is capable of much more than presented on just about everything post - No Prayer for the Dying. The track listing boasts three songs that hit the six-minute mark including the title track, "The Duelists" and "2 Minutes to Midnight" in addition to the whopping thirteen-minute album closer, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", and even the shorter songs here have their complex and intricate instrumental moments. Speaking of instrumentals, Iron Maiden definitively craft their best one yet, "Losfer Words (Big 'Orra)", which would be the first time they'd do an instrumental since "Genghis Khan" from the Di'anno era, not to mention the last instrumental they'd ever do up to this point. Instrumentals were never Iron Maiden's strongest asset, "Genghis Khan" from Killers had shown potential in how evocative it was but failed to have enough going on in it to dedicate giving it its own track on the album. Considering they were sitting on unused material such as "Women in Uniform" or "Invasion", I really wouldn't have been able to justify including it on the album, the only unused track that it does beat would be the meandering butt rock of "Spiritual Guidance", and there's no way to know whether that truly is an unreleased Di'Anno era Iron Maiden song or if Di'Anno was just saying that during his solo band's live shows back in '84.

Oh, that reminds me, this came out the same year as Di'Anno's debut album, and the difference really couldn't be any more night and day. While I'm nostalgic for the first couple of albums, it's clear to see that the band made the right decision in retrospect. Di'anno wasn't quite washed up just yet, his solo band actually made some pretty cool tracks at this point, he wasn't a cue ball yet, and he wasn't disrespecting his fans at live shows yet. Throughout the 80's, I'd say that Di'Anno was expanding as a vocalist as a matter of fact, while Bruce didn't really have much to improve on to begin with... and seriously, he doesn't really try, "The Duelists" finds himself using the same exact pentameter heard on the previous album's "Where Eagles Dare". It's the only point at which Powerslave starts to lack originality, but even then, I'd say that "The Duelists" is just a better version of "Where Eagles Dare" as it continues to unleash the insane guitar work we'd been hearing on the tracks leading up to this such as "Aces High" and most notably "Flash of the Blade". Considering "Where Eagles Dare" came first, I should probably regard this as little more than the band running out of ideas, but everyone else here makes up for Dickinson's phoned-in performance.

What's going on between Dave Murray and Adrian Smith is fantastic! Usually when people ask the question "Iron Maiden or Judas Priest", I'm left scratching my head thinking "is that really a question? Judas Priest, no contest", but Powerslave actually finds this guitar duo outperforming any performance that K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton ever managed to put together. You know the title track from "Screaming for Vengeance"? Powerslave is basically that song stretched out between eight tracks, the riffs are seemingly never ending, and the spark and spontaneity is to be lauded. The best part of this entire album is the dual solo heard on "Flash of the Blade". This is madman genius levels of musical brilliance taking shape here. One guitar is frantic and on fire while the other is slower and doomier, creating a harmony filled with trepidatious energy. Most importantly, the guitars actually have the distortion back in them this time around, where Piece of Mind found them coming across a little too clean and flimsy. Powerslave puts the crunch back in them, and no song highlights that better than "2 Minutes to Midnight", the radio pleaser from this album. When it comes to the band's more dedicated fan base, "Aces High" becomes the clear winner, when it comes to this album's more dedicated fan base, there absolutely is no clear winner. Every song is phenomenal.

The title track is huge, and this, along with the also dumbfoundingly huge "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" are the only songs that really have that Egyptian theme that the album art eludes to. I'd say that "Flash of the Blade" also has a little bit of the Egyptian aesthetic going for it as well, but that's a little more debatable. The title track; however, is truly Iron Maiden's very own version of Metallica's "Creeping Death". That's probably a really good connection to make actually. A lot was changing between the release of Piece of Mind and this album, with thrash bands, especially Metallica making a splash in the United States. What's interesting is that NWOBHM bands would often take inspiration from thrash metal without ever compromising the more traditional sound that the U.K. was known for. As a result, bands from the U.K, were getting heavier and heavier, sometimes even more hardcore punk driven without ever stepping into the thrash metal territory. Iron Maiden are a pretty good example, with Paul Di'Anno's Battlezone being a good example of what the U.K. metal scene could do towards the later end of the decade on albums such as "Fighting Back" and "Children of Madness".

While i think this is Iron Maiden's best album in their entire discography, the band would continue to innovate and expand their horizons, especially on their following two albums, Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Further albums would continue to find the band in unfamiliar territory, so the buck really doesn't stop here. There's still plenty left to hear that's worth hearing, if at least for nothing more than the novelty factor behind releases from 1990 onward. The pyramids and ancient Egypt allude to a lot of different things for a lot of people out there. An ancient civilization perhaps more advanced than history gives them credit for, some are starting to theorize that the pyramid was actually a giant electrical power generator. If that's true, perhaps ancient Egypt had their very own heavy metal bands. Conspiracy theorists will undoubtedly claim that the aliens brought us here and made the pyramids, religious folk will think back to the exile. For me personally, I'm a pretty simple guy, Egypt's prime export is Powerslave. Sorry to all the Egyptian heavy metal bands out there, I know you're being represented unfairly, but come on, make an album as good as Powerslave, and then we'll talk.

Superchard gets super hard for:
'Flash of the Blade'
'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'
'Back in the Village'
'Aces High'

Rating: 10 out of 10

Review by Carl on January 9, 2024.

Rape Pillage And Burn, it's what happens when you bring together members of Dismember and the awesome Divine Eve. Releasing only this sturdy EP, and then vanishing into nothingness, unfortunately leaving the name to fall into obscurity. Which is a bleeding shame, really, because this is not to be sniffed at.

Taking into account the people involved and the resumes they carry, it will probably not surprise anyone that this unholy union resulted in an outfit that plays old school death metal, completely made by grandma's recipe. And in this case, that grandma spoken of is none other than Tom Warrior himself, because this has Hellhammer DNA sloshing around everywhere.

Rape Pillage and Burn fits in snugly between other acts delivering steel-plated, traditional death metal such as Pentacle, Funeral Nation, Cianide and of course Divine Eve. Influenced by the earliest progenitors of the genre such as the already mentioned Hellhammer (and Celtic Frost), but feel free to add the names of NME, Venom and Slaughter as well, because they all left some traces in there. The band has built their sound on a foundation of jagged primitive hammering riffs underpinned by an equally no-frills pounding percussive approach, completely devoid of technical wank or progressive leanings whatsoever. The band takes the blunt approach to their music, and while being uptempo for most part, they never go super fast, primarily keeping to a simple sturdy beat driving the music forward. On top of this approach comes the raw-throated growling voice of Michael A. Sleavin, who manages to combine the sound of Venom's Cronos with that of Chris Reifert of Autopsy, providing heaps of old school vibes throughout. It's not all caveman death metal pounding here, though. Maybe it's because of the presence here of Richard Cabeza, but I did pick up on some Dismember and Unleashed touches in some of the riffing at times, alleviating the straight-forward stomp somewhat with a touch of Swedeath riffing here and there. In the context of the unrelenting old school death metal-isms the band showcases during the runtime of this EP, this adds a cool edge to proceedings, fitting in well with the rest of the music. In the album closer "With Venomous Tongues" the foot goes off the accelerator completely, letting an Autopsy vibe creep in that moves along at a geriatric snail's pace, leaving slimy trails everywhere. Yeah, these guys know how to old school death metal, no doubt about that.

But there is some left to desire, unfortunately. While not a disaster, it's a shame that the production is kinda flaccid. Music of this kind needs a powerful sound to it, think of how a lot of Cianide's work sounds, but that is just not in the cards here. While certainly evenly balanced out, the guitars and percussion sound pretty weak, as if played with only half power. There's just very little strength to them, which drains a portion of the power from the otherwise great music. Something you can also hear in the guitar leads, they are simply present, adequate but simply sounding way too nice and friendly for music as stomping as this.

Despite the kinda lacklustre production, this is still a damn solid offering of ye olde schoole death metal, but what else was there to expect from individuals with credentials such as this? I hope these guys will converge again at some time and place, because this EP should get a follow-up, and preferably one with a less sterile, more lively production than this one.

Rating: 8 out of 10