Bruce Dickinson’s like fine (Gothic) wine!

OK, first up a warning…Auntie Joey, you might want to turn down your hearing aid…

Here we go…

The iconic former front man of Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickimson, has just released a new album. And by “just” I mean 1 March 2024. I’ve always been a huge fan of Iron Maiden and, let’s face it, while me saying that Bruce Dickimson is the “sound of Iron Maiden”, it might wrongly imply that the other Maiden members don’t count, that’s not true. But then, it actually is true to some extent. The multi-octave range and unique delivery from Dickinson is the sound of Iron Maiden. I dare you to play any track of Iron Maiden without vox – it’s not really that unique. Great, but not that unique. Dickinson’s vox is the “x factor”. And on this latest album, “The Mandrake Project”, his magnificent pipes are on full display. In fact, the older he gets the more his (already very pronounced) rock vibrato grows.

“The Mandrake Project” is the seventh solo studio album from Dickinson, the first since 2005’s “Tyranny of Souls”. I love the album…it seems that most critics do too, and fans are enthralled. It’s very theatrical…in fact, in some places it’s almost Meatloaf-ey in it’s drama, complexity and mystique. It supposed to be based on the scribblings and art of reknowned dark spirit Robert Blake. But it’s big, it’s loud, and there’s lots of drama. This is dramatic rock vocals at it’s finest, a la Ronnie Dio…there was huge hype about this album, and I think it delivers…

The track below, “Rain on the Graves” was allegedly inspired by a visit by Dickinson to the grace of Romantic poet, William Wordsworth in the Lake District…