Monday, September 30, 2019

I'd Love to Turn You On #241 - Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind (1983)

Entering into the world of Iron Maiden can be very intimidating from the outside, you rarely meet a fan who isn’t a die hard, or someone who doesn’t love this band more than some of their own family. They’ve been around long enough where they’ve been passed down from parents to children, aunt and uncle to nephew and niece, but still have the appeal to be able to get the attention of the teenager who feels like they don’t fit in. How can a band with a zombie-like mascot that is on every album cover sell out arenas across the world? It’s very strange, but it shows how far good songwriting, melody, and work ethic go in the music business.
 Most bands have something very special about their first couple of albums - there is something so raw, hungry, and primal that you cannot ignore them. Iron Maiden embodied that with their self-titled debut and sophomore album Killers. Those albums were recorded with their original singer Paul Di’Anno, and most metal fans will defend those albums until they’re blue in the face, but there is so much gold to be found deeper in the well. After Killers, the band decided to hire vocalist Bruce Dickinson, and he brought the band to the next level - they were able to soar over every other band’s vocal abilities. His debut was on The Number of The Beast, which is a classic from the very beginning to the last guitar solo, but following that classic up was the hard part. Luckily for metal fans all over they nailed it with Piece of Mind, their fourth album, stuck the landing, and cemented themselves as a major piece of rock history, even outside of metal. They feel like a brand new band and they aren’t letting their past define them. Piece of Mind is an album presented by a band that is completely confident in what they’re doing. Their main song writer - bass player Steve Harris - now has a few albums under his belt and a new voice to really complete his vision, and he uses that to his full advantage.
            The album starts off with a powerful drum intro for the song "Where Eagles Dare" (a song based on the Clint Eastwood movie of the same name), after which the guitars just pummel you with their power, and the bass is crisp, clear, and forward in the mix, which you don’t hear a lot of in metal at this time. It's followed by "Revelations," "The Flight of Icarus," and "Die With Your Boots On," where the lyrics start to go a little deeper than movie references. Diving into literature of Crowley and Greek mythology, listening to this as a freshman in high school it opened up this whole world of wonder. These stories and themes now felt way more accessible instead of being homework. Nothing makes Greek mythology cooler than Iron Maiden as the soundtrack, and that’s a fact! At the time I first heard this I was also pretty heavily into hardcore punk, being able to pull out the themes from songs like “Die With Your Boots On,” and comparing it to the more straightforward lyrics in Gorilla Biscuits' “Hold Your Ground,” they felt like the same song to me. Right in the middle of the album they throw in what might be their biggest hit, “The Trooper.” At this point it feels like this song is bigger than the band itself; it is the song that even if you don’t like the band, you know this song. This band has a heavy emphasis on bass, but it feels like the bass is carrying this song more than any other. It’s the kind of song that makes you want to play bass instead of guitar - even as I’m writing this and listening to the album again I took a brief break to grab my bass to play along with the song; I couldn’t help myself, it just has that effect on people.
How this album ebbs and flows is a very important part of it too. After the exhilarating highs of "The Trooper," they have a cryptic, reversed spoken word into for "Still Life," which is a song that has more gradual build up, keeping the momentum going until the last song. With the songs "Quest for Fire," "Sun and Steel," and the finale "To Tame a Land," they really show off how fantastic their production is, with high-flying shredding going on between the dual guitars, and the bass also carving itself a comfortable spot in the mix. The vocals lay on top of all of it like a blanket and the drums are so precise that it never feels like there is a single hit out of place.  They just nail every bit of it.
This album has the perfect mix of hits and deep cuts, they're still in their prime as a band and creative force. They keep the momentum going with three more great albums that are just as good as this album, even if they don’t have hits like "The Trooper." Once you start listening to this band you become branded for life; it becomes a gateway into a whole other world of great, heavy music. You never stop being an Iron Maiden fan when you grow up - you may listen to them less, but you never stop being a fan.

- Max Kaufman

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