This week in the Iron Maiden singles series it’s on to the album Brave New World from 2000. It’s a big one for what are obvious reasons to most, for those unaware I’ll catch you up in a second. Note that I don’t currently have The Wicker Man in my collection, it was the first single from BNW and I’m only covering the stuff currently in my collection.

The big news? The line-up shuffle hit Iron Maiden for the next and perhaps last (?) time. Blaze Bayley was excused from the group and in his place returned the band’s iconic frontman Bruce Dickinson. It was a reunion that Maiden heads had been clamoring for basically since Bruce left the band and the Blaze stuff fell flat with a lot of the supporters. While Iron Maiden have been an exceptionally talented band in several areas, there’s little doubt that their calling card was the Human Air Raid Siren Bruce Dickinson, and now he was back home to stay.

But Bruce didn’t come alone. He had been joined on his past two excellent solo albums by former Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith, who left the band in 1990. Adrian’s return did not displace anyone – the band decided to retain a three guitar line-up of Smith, original gangster Dave Murray and Janick Gers, Smith’s replacement in 1990. The three guitar attack has worked well for Maiden and the band’s roster remains unchanged 24 years on from the reunion.

Maiden had truly gotten the band back together, had toured and then recorded, then were out to unleash their new creation on the world. Today’s single is a 12-inch record picture disc with the lead track and two live B-sides from the actual reunion tour. There are different covers for the various versions, though each version of the single does contain the same tracks (one missing from the 7-inch due to science). The cover art was done by Mark Wilkinson, who has done extensive work with Marillion and Judas Priest, and was also the artist behind the past few Maiden album covers.

Out Of The Silent Planet

The single draws its inspiration from the 1965 sci-fi film Forbidden Planet (starring Leslie Nielsen!). In that film an alien planet was found in ruins. It turns out that the beings had created machines that could simply produce whatever the people thought of. As it happens, one thing people thought of were horrible monsters and so the monsters were created and tore everything apart.

While the film is a highly rated classic, the song doesn’t get such lofty praise. It is very repetitive, even for Maiden, and in parts it’s kind of shrill. I don’t mind the song at all, it’s not something I skip when I play the album, but I wouldn’t call this a highlight of the catalog either. I like the story behind it and all that.

It was curious that this song got picked as a single when a song like Blood Brothers was sitting right there. It got a music video and everything, yet Maiden did not play it out a whole lot on a tour where they played songs from Brave New World heavily. But it wasn’t all that important in the end, Iron Maiden were back and everyone was happy.

Wasted Years

The first B-side is from a September 1999 concert in Milan, Italy. This was on the Ed Hunter tour which was Maiden’s big reunion shindig. None of this stuff was ever put on to one of the band’s many live albums so these B-sides are pretty cool to have. This Maiden classic is played a bit fast and loose, which honestly is kind of nice to hear. The essence of the song comes off just fine with this rendition.

Aces High

Same scenario as the prior B-side, though this song is from a set in Madrid, Spain on the same tour. Also a signature Maiden song, complete with Churchill’s speech for the intro. This one is also played very fast and loose, in fact it does nearly go off the rails a time or two. But the band keep it together and this one also works out pretty well in the end.

That does it for the first reunion single. This series is headed into the home stretch, four more after this and it’s all done. Again, I’ll revisit this series in a year or so when I’ve aqcuired more of the singles I don’t have right now. And after a two week or so break once this is done, I’ll kick off a look at the Maiden live albums, which will take to close to the end of the year to get through.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One

Running Free

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Holy Smoke

Be Quick Or Be Dead

From Here To Eternity

Virus

Out Of The Silent Planet (you are here)

Rainmaker

Different World

The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg

Empire Of The Clouds