Piece of Mind

Piece of Mind is the fourth album on which Iron Maiden binds dashing riffs, intricately built rhythm and Bruce Dickinson’s powerful singing. The great drummer Nicko McBrain joined from this album, making the band’s rhythmic foundation even firmer. The songs draw a grand narrative yet keep a sure tension in every moment of the playing. In the valiant speed of the signature “The Trooper,” the cinematic development of “Where Eagles Dare,” the drama of the single “Flight of Icarus” and “Revelations,” aggression and lyricism coexist at a high level, while cuts like “Die with Your Boots On” and “To Tame a Land” give the album grand depth. Its appeal lies precisely in how the band’s intelligence and physicality resound powerfully at once. It succeeds in developing the direction established on the previous The Number of the Beast more precisely and grandly. Uniting the constructiveness of heavy metal and a fist-raising lift in the finest form, it is a masterpiece that became a major reference point of 1980s metal.