Track Listing

1. Where Eagles Dare
2. Revelations
3. Flight Of Icarus
4. Die With Your Boots On
5. Trooper
6. Still Life
7. Quest For Fire
8. Sun And Steel
9. To Tame A Land
10. Flight Of Icarus
11. Trooper

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2871 in Music
• Released on: 1998-09-14
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

CD Description
PIECE OF MIND is the release cemented Iron Maiden firmly inthe 1980s, making it one of the decade's most successful and enduring metal bands. This album includes such standards as the soaring "Flight of Icarus" and the barnstorming war tale "The Trooper". While the band had dabbled with epics on previous albums, PIECE OF MIND was the first to feature several complex tunes, like the album-opening "Where Eagles Dare", the contemplative "Revelations", and the album-closing "ToTame a Land", the last of which was inspired by the sci-fi novel series DUNE, by Frank Herbert. Personnel changes on this album include ex-Trust/Pat Travers drummer Nicko McBrain who took over for Clive Burr, but that shakeup did not hamper the success of PIECE OF MIND which, in keeping with Maiden's streak of hit releases, is another classic album.

Customer Reviews

Piece of Cake.
With this album from 1983 Iron Maiden consolidated their status as Kings of Metal. New drummer Nico McBrain completed what is regarded as the classic Maiden line-up, bringing a touch of insanity with his larger than life personality and this is reflected on the album cover, which shows band mascot Eddie as an inmate in a lunatic asylum.

Opening track 'Where Eagles Dare' is based on the World War II film of the same name and sets the tone for the whole album with its relentless pounding and galloping bass lines which are an important part of the Iron Maiden sound. 'Revelations' became a live favourite over the next 2 years and is one of the few songs to get fans of the band to wave lighters in the air in true metal fashion. The great anthemic song on the album is 'Flight of Icarus' but the song to make most impact with the fans is 'The Trooper' which sees Eddie in the uniform of a British soldier during the Crimean War.

Despite all this my personal favourite track is 'Sun and Steel' because it is one of the most melodic songs from the band and helps make side 2 of the album almost as strong as side 1. This is as good a Maiden album to start with as any other for people interested in finding out what the fuss is all about.

Building the legend.
If the previous album "The number of the beast" was a an early indication of what was going to follow, then "PIECE of MIND" completely blew away everything. From the powerful detonation of the opening track ("Where eagles dare" is based on the novel and film of the same name) through to the epic imagery of its last song, this album is another classic Maiden moment. Two incredible singles ("The Flight of Icarus" and the incandescent all time favourite riff of "The Trooper"), a 7 minutes ouvre d'art based on the Frank Herbert classic Sci-Fi novel DUNE (Herbert was contacted at the time but refused permission to the band for using it as a title, that's why the song was called "To Tame a Land"), the beautiful delicacy of "Still Life" and the anti-nuclear war manifest of "Die with your boots on", everything shines on this record. Even "Sun and Steel" and "Quest for fire" are good examples of 80's metal. I leave for the end my personal favourite of this incredible sound assault: "Revelations". This Dickinson's original is one of the finest songs that Bruce have ever written. It's also the first song that he officially wrote for Maiden and sets the pace for a dozen of classics that eventually followed it. "Piece of Mind" enhanced the Maiden popularity around the world, and although they were arguably the best band the best was yet to come. Don't waste more time, metal doesn't get any better than this.

Maiden move to the global scale
With the arrival of drummer Nicko McBrain, Iron Maiden settled in to a rigorous album-tour-album cycle that would see them climb to global dominance in the metal world. This is not the sound of a bunch of kids emerging from the pub circuit, but a bunch of musicians growing and maturing as a band. Gone are the tales of prostitutes, subways, boozing and remembering tomorrow and in come the high concept tales of fantasy, mythology, war and sci-fi. In making that transition to global status, I feel that Maiden lost something of their earthy roots, but what the album lacks in urgency it makes up in professional sheen. Adrian Smith and Bruce Dickinson came more to the fore as songwriters, and Harris also weighed in with his fair share of quality material. Of said material, the pick of the bunch would definately appear amongst the first half of the tracks, as the album has often been accused of tailing off towards the end a little in awkward epics such as "To tame a land" and "Quest for fire".