Agreed. Musical creativity in writing only works for a few years with the same group of people, at least without a long break. For me, personally, the example that most comes to mind is Iron Maiden over the last 15 years or so. No records that compare to dickenson’s first 3. Muscially, they are all ‘nice’ but nothing inspirational, or at least very little.
I gotta disagree. Stranger in a Strange Land and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son came out in the mid-late eighties and they are my favorite albums by them. Fantastic stuff, epic even. The stories are great, the music is awesome and hard-driving. Yeah, yeah, I know, flame away because of all the synthesizer stuff. But, at least on a Maiden album, the synth is rockin'.
Iron Maiden?!? EXCELLENT!