|
|
The first time I heard this record,I was about 13. It had already been out for
about 4 years,and in that time it had been widely regarded as a classic. Once I
heard the brief drum solo that opens lead track Where Eagles Dare”,
it was easy to hear why. There was something so fierce about Piece Of Mind.
Perhaps it was the production of Martin Birch, or the primal screams of Bruce
Dickinson. Maybe it was nine-round axe duel between Adrian Smith and Dave Murray
or the masterful rhythm section of Steve Harris and Nicko McBrain. I think it
was all of those, but most importantly, it was the songwriting that made this
album the highlight of metal's most creatively stellar year,1983. Listen
to the aural acrobatics of the aforementioned Where Eagles Dare
which features one of the best examples of daring riffery and acrobatic melody
the metal genre has to offer. Even the album's weakest track, Quest For
Fire,thrusts, dodges, lunges, and parries with proud cunning. Every
composition on Piece Of Mind broke ground, and the album as a whole could not
have been written by any other band.
Piece of Mind is one of those records that always seemed to be not unlike an
anthology of self-contained, yet vaguely related stories. When reading the
acknowledgements, it comes as no surprise that the band thanks Alistair MacLean
and Frank Herbert for the inspiration that their novels brought to their work.
My young mind was engrossed in the richly British escapism of the lyrics and
still is to this day. Where Eagles Dare sent us on a mission to
infiltrate a castle in the Austrian Alps. The intricate dirge
Revelations told a tale of Biblical intrigue. “Flight Of
Icarus brought the myth of one who tempts fate with man-made wings to a
whole new generation. Die With Your Boots On gave us a warnings
from Nostradamus. The Trooper, with its rousing, galloping
twin-lead riff, put us right onto a battlefield during the Crimean war.
Still Life told us a ghost story. Quest For Fire
took us back to prehistoric times. Sun And Steel took us into the
mind of Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, and finale To Tame A
Land thrust us into the futuristic world of Frank Herbert's desert
world Arrakis. Never before or since has a album taken me to so many fantastic
realms in such a short period of time. This, combined with everything else I
have wrote, is what makes Piece Of Mind the definitive Maiden experience. All in
all it remains a swashbuckling thriller of sound and fury that has withstood the
onslaught of Father Time long enough to become my favorite album ever.