Senjutsu
Senjutsu (Japanese: 戦術, "Tactics") is the seventeenth studio album by English heavy metal band Iron Maiden, released on 3 September 2021.Released on 3 September 2021, it received a positive response from most fans and music critics, eventually reaching the top of the bestseller lists of 27 countries, including Belgium (Wallonia and Flanders), Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Croatia, Malaysia, Serbia, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, India and South Korea.[11] Senjutsu was also in the Top 3 bestsellers in the USA (the highest in the group's history so far), Australia, Ireland, Great Britain (first on the lists in Wales and Scotland), Singapore, Israel, UAE, Japan, the Netherlands, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Montenegro, Poland, Estonia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nepal, Honduras, Uruguay, Cyprus, Latvia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Taiwan, Malta and Ukraine.[13] Senjutsu marks the second use of the band's original logotype (with the extended letters R, M and N) on a studio album cover since 1995's The X Factor, the previous one being for 2015's The Book of Souls.The higher caste warriors usually had many layers of highly ornate, dense fabric both to project and pad them out on the battlefield – I couldn't see such a costume working for the skeletal figure of Eddie.[16] AllMusic awarded it 4 out of five, stating, "Clocking in at just over 80 minutes, the epic Senjutsu is another distended late-career triumph, albeit one that requires multiple spins to set up camp in your Homeric metal-craving cranium".[17] Wall of Sound scored the album 9/10, calling it an "(...) epic and triumphant return for the lads... better balanced [than The Book of Souls]... with some interesting songwriting".Ultimate Classic Rock praised album with an enthusiastic review claiming that "Steve Harris seems to have fulfilled his ambition of turning Maiden into a no-holds-barred prog band, albeit with a taste for riffs and melodies that remain specifically theirs.[29] An international online magazine PopMatters scored the album 8/10, advising the listeners to "(...) let the world's greatest heavy metal band take you on yet another excursion.[45][46][47] Both the band and their latest studio effort were the winners of annual readers' poll announced by German edition of Rock Hard magazine.[55] "The Parchment" was listed among "Best Hard Rock Songs of 2021" published by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, the album's longest composition reached the 4th position.