Iron Maiden to Release New Album, Bitches!

© Parlophone, Sanctuary, BMG, Mark Wilkinson

Rejoice! The release date of Iron Maiden's new album, The Book of Souls, is set at the 4th of September. The album was finished earlier, but was understandably put on hold due to singer Bruce Dickinson's health issues. Now that Dickinson has been given an all clear, he wastes no time in continuing on the planned trajectory. Because that's just the type of badass motherfucker he is.

The album will be the band's first in five years (wait, Final Frontier was released five years ago already? Holy shit dude, time flies) and their first ever double album. The latter fact is in all probability caused by some mighty long songs like If Eternity Should Fail (8:28), The Red and the Black (13:33), The Book of Souls (10:27) and The Empire of the Clouds (a whopping 18:01, surpassing the 31 year record holder Rime of the Ancient Mariner by 4:16 minutes).

Now, with no audio to listen to, let's take a look at the album's cover.

The Artist.
Although the ideal would of course be Derek Riggs, Mark Wilkinson has made enough of a name for himself to be considered the next best thing. Wilkinson has been working with Judas Priest non stop since Ram it Down (1988), has made a whole bunch of Fish and Marillion album covers, did some kickass stuff for the Darkness and has even worked with Maiden before (Live at Donnington 1992, the Wicker Man, Out of the Silent Planet (illustrated below)).

© Parlophone, Sanctuary, BMG, Mark Wilkinson

Return of the Elongated Letters.

From Virtual XI (1998) on, there has been a slight change in the logo, straightening the base of the font instead of letting the letters bleed out a bit, giving the logo more of a bold, bulky appearance. Personally, I always preferred the old logo and lo and behold, there it is again. Sitting on top of the cover as if it never left. Welcome back buddy (I'm not sure I care about the extra border though, especially given the simple design of the rest of the cover, but now we're venturing into trivial territory).

Return of the proper Eddie.

Eddie's appearance on the Final Frontier cover was a subject of controversy, mainly because it deviated so much from the original Eddie that he seemed to exist solely to taunt Derek Riggs. Now the real Eddie is back (even his eyes seem to echo the band's debut album), which goes to show that Iron Maiden listens to its fans. Awesome.

The Theme.

Eddie appears as some kind of Voodoo witch doctor, or perhaps even Baron Samedi. I'm quite exited about this, because there are loads of great things to be done with a Voodoo theme. Imagine the lavish set pieces, the detail riddled merchandise. Also consider the fact that much of the modern concept of the zombie is directly derived from Haitian Vodou. From Wikipedia: 

"The zombie belief has its roots in traditions brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans, and their subsequent experiences in the New World. It was thought that the Vodou deity Baron Samedi would gather them from their grave to bring them to a heavenly afterlife in Africa ("Guinea"), unless they had offended him in some way, in which case they would be forever a slave after death, as a zombie."

 It's not hard to picture Eddie doing something quite similar. Perhaps without the slavery angle, in the name of good taste (not to say that such a thing couldn't be handled well, of course).

Conclusion.

Visually, Iron Maiden has made a complete return to form. I have no doubt the music will live up to this.

Up the Irons!

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