01. Iron Maiden Piece of Mind 1983 (EMI)
Heavy Metal
The mighty roar of the maiden's guns.
The Lowdown
It was on
Piece of Mind that the Iron Maiden myth would really be born, as on their previous album
The Number of the Beast an album that I had described as a marked Mona Lisa, the band had taken a big step in the cutting of ties with their early punk roots. On that album the band had now gone in for a big ‘stadium metal’ sound, which of course was provided by then new vocalist Bruce Dickinson singing right over the top of the band’s arrangements. For such a supposed classic album though, I alway felt that the track listing order on the album could have been improved, as I always felt that the album always seemed to have a slightly rushed feel to it, as they tried to incorporate Bruce Dickinson into proceedings. On
Piece of Mind the band faced no such limitations and issued not only the album that they had always desired, but also an album that their talent was truly capable of spawning. Of course this transformation to
Piece of Mind didn’t happen overnight, as the band substituted drummer Clive Burr for fellow Londoner Nicko McBain, whose drumming ability was now truly capable of following the complex guitar patterns of guitarists Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, and bassist Steve Harris. This whole situation kind of reminds me many years earlier when Tony Kaye was kicked out of Yes in favour of Rick Wakemen, as he was accused of not being able to follow the extremely complex guitar playing of Steve Howe. Every member of the new line-up contributes to the songwriting minus Nicko McBain and every song on the album is inspired by mythlogy, sci-fi and fantasy, and basically anything that interested bassist and band leader Steve Harris. The opening track “Where Eagles Dare” features the trademark galloping style of the band with Bruce Dickinson singing right across the arrangements, but it’s on the album’s second track “Revelations” that the band lay their stall out for the album's more complex tracks. In amongst the complex playing by the band on the song here "Revelations" goes through an impressive array of moods and tempo changes that demonstrate the band’s mastery of their material and you now realize that an album lyric sheet should be high priority here. Third track and one of the album singles is the more melodic “Flight of Icarus” which achieves what it aims to do and that is to engage the listener with its soaring chorus and the final song on the original a-side is “Die with Your Boots On” which sees a return to the band’s galloping style and it’s probably the lesser song on the album. Next track is “The Trooper” one the band’s anthems and the showpiece track of the album and it’s highlighted by Dave Murray and Adrian Smith’s famous harmonized guitar riff, probably the most famous of the band. “Still Life” has a hidden message at the start of the song and it’s a track which approaches the moodier tones of “Revelations” and can almost be referred to as the title track, as it mentions ‘Piece of Mind’ in the lyrics. Of the remaining tracks “Quest for Fire” is a song about cavemen and “Sun and Steel” about samurai. Album closer “To Tame a Land” is an eastern influenced seven minute progressive epic and as expected the song is of fairly epic proportions, something that they would continue with on their next album. But most of all the thing I find quite unique about Iron Maiden at this time, is their ability to go complex both musically and lyrically, but at the same time still keeping everything in a controlled musical sphere and making sure that everything actually has meaning to its actions and they were also masters of cutting the fat from the bone in their musical arrangements (on most of their tracks but not all) this is indeed in stark contrast to say a band like Metallica who despite being seminal themselves, could easily be accused of going complex just for the sake of going complex, which finally saw them ending up with that travesty of an album
… And Justice For All and I’ll be interested to see what I think of it when I listen to it in its year listings as I haven’t heard it in years.
Piece of Mind came out at a time when fellow British heavyweight metal bands like Def Leppard and Judas Priest were more than content to tow a commercial line by issuing out melodic tracks and embracing MTV, Iron Maiden though made no such compromises and never suffered for it, in fact their reputation would grow as they became known as ‘a thinking mans metal band’. Both
Piece of Mind and
Powerslave are often regarded as the two untouchable albums in the band’s discography and fan’s of the band often go for one over the other, even though they still recognize that both are seminal works and needless to say both albums make just about every essential metal album list out there that’s worth its salt.
Bruce Dickinson- Vocals
Dave Murray- Guitar
Adrian Smith- Guitar
Steve Harris- Bass
Nicko McBain- Drums
Production- Martin Birch