Iron Maiden Announces Latest Album, ‘The Book Of Souls’
Now that their frontman, Bruce Dickinson, has beat cancer, Iron Maiden is back with their sixteenth studio album, a double album titled The Book of Souls, the Guardian reports. The album will feature 11 new songs and run for a total of 92 minutes.
The Book Of Souls – coming September 4th http://t.co/gNW90fqzdG pic.twitter.com/zQRrJKPkqv
— Iron Maiden (@IronMaiden) June 18, 2015
“We’re really excited about The Book of Souls and had a fantastic time creating it,” Bruce Dickinson said in a statement about the new album. “We started working on the album in late summer 2014 and recorded it at Guillaume Tell Studios in Paris, where we’d done the Brave New World album back in 2000 so the studio holds special memories for all of us. We were delighted to discover the same magical vibe is still alive and very much kicking there! So we immediately felt at home and the ideas just started flowing. By the time we’d finished we all agreed that each track was such an integral part of the whole body of work that if it needed to be a double album, then double it’s going to be!”
Iron Maiden will promote the new album by going on tour in 2016, after it’s release on September 4 of this year. With the recent recovery of Bruce Dickinson from tongue cancer, the band’s manager, Rod Smallwood, stated it will take some time for Dickinson to be back to full speed again. In May of this year he said that is the reason the band won’t be back on tour until next year.
The new album is the product of shared songwriting, Ultimate Class Rock reported. Bassist Steve Harris helped with the writing of all the songs on the album, and other members of the band were involved with the writing of all but one of the songs.
“We approached this album in a different way to how we’ve recorded previously,” Harris added. “A lot of the songs were actually written while we were there in the studio and we rehearsed and recorded them straight away while they were still fresh, and I think that immediacy really shows in the songs, they have almost a live feel to them, I think.”
The news album was recorded with producer Kevin “Caveman” Shirley, who also co-produced the band’s Brave New World album that was released in 2000, Rolling Stone reported. They recorded the album in France late last year. The new album is the band’s first ever double studio album and one of the songs featured is the longest ever recorded by the band.
Track listing for Iron Maiden’s The Book of Souls:
Disc 1
1. “If Eternity Should Fail” (Dickinson)
2. “Speed of Light” (Smith/Dickinson)
3. “The Great Unknown” (Smith/Harris)
4. “The Red and the Black” (Harris)
5. “When the River Runs Deep” (Smith/Harris)
6. “The Book of Souls (Gers/Harris)
Disc 2
7. “Death or Glory” (Smith/Dickinson)
8. “Shadows of the Valley” (Gers/Harris)
9. “Tears of a Clown” (Smith/Harris)
10. “The Man of Sorrows” (Murray/Harris)
11. “Empire of the Clouds” (Dickinson)
[Photo of Bruce Dickinson by PYMCA for Getty Images.]
