Forty Year Friday (1983) – IRON MAIDEN “PIECE OF MIND”

It’s Forty Year Friday again. For more information on this series, please read the opening paragraph of the first post, which featured Never Surrender by Triumph.

Posted on my Facebook page October 31, 2013:

This week’s Thirty-Year Thursday album is “PIECE OF MIND” by IRON MAIDEN. Although they were quickly becoming one of the biggest bands in the world at the time this was released in May 1983, and a handful of my friends were really into them, I ignored them through my high school years & beyond. It wasn’t until a trip to a record store that specialized in used vinyl, sometime in ’97 or ’98, that I decided to give their music a shot. I chose the albums I remember being very popular when I was a teenager, including this one, Killers, The Number Of The Beast and Live After Death. Within a couple of songs into Killers I knew I was going to love these guys, and once I heard the others I got upset with my younger self for ignoring them all those years. They ticked so many of my musical boxes: killer songwriting, stellar musicianship, complex arrangements (appealing to my love of progressive rock) and a vocalist (Bruce Dickinson, who was on all of these albums except Killers) with one of the most powerful voices I’ve ever heard. Within a year I owned all of their albums on CD and made up for lost time.

The first five songs on PIECE OF MIND are nothing short of brilliant, and most metal bands would kill to write that many great songs in a career. “Where Eagles Dare,” “Revelations,” “Flight Of Icarus,” “Die With Your Boots On” and “The Trooper” are powerful & full of melodic hooks and impressive playing from everyone in the band. Producer Martin Birch, who made his name with a bunch of classic ’70s Deep Purple albums, was just as important to the monstrous sound of this record as the musicians. The last 4 songs aren’t quite as strong as the first five, but none of them are filler, with “Still Life” and the lengthy “To Tame A Land” being my favorites of this batch. For me…and probably many fans…this album comes down to the previously-mentioned “The Trooper,” which is as much a definitive statement as anything in their catalog. Happy 30th anniversary to an album I should’ve loved a long time ago. It’s also a perfect album to feature on Halloween, since there are few album covers more frightening than PIECE OF MIND.

I previously wrote about their 1986 album Somewhere In Time in the Thirty Year Thursday series about my favorite releases of that year. I wrapped up that post with the following: “Somewhere In Time is an excellent album that only pales slightly when compared to the greatness that came before it (as well as the masterpiece they would unleash two years later).” So as much as I love that record, my feelings about Piece Of Mind are even stronger, and that appreciation continues to grow each time I play it. I already mentioned singer Bruce Dickinson and producer Martin Birch, but the entire band is explosive, including new arrival Nicko McBrain on drums along with bassist/creative force Steve Harris and the twin guitar attack of Dave Murray & Adrian Smith. As longtime Maiden fans love to say: UP THE IRONS!