Rock legends IRON MAIDEN have announced the upcoming release of their 17th studio album Senjutsu, their first in six years, on September 3rd. It was recorded in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by Steve Harris.
It was preceded on Thursday July 15th by an already highly acclaimed animated video for the first single “The Writing On The Wall” made by BlinkInk based on a concept by Bruce Dickinson with two former Pixar Executives. It followed a month-long teaser campaign & global ‘treasure hunt’ for clues about the track title and concept.
For Senjutsu – loosely translated as ‘tactics & strategy,’ the band once again enlisted the services of Mark Wilkinson to create the spectacular Samurai themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Steve Harris. With a running time of a little under 82 minutes, Senjutsu, like their previous record The Book Of Souls, will be a double CD/Triple vinyl album.
Steve says “We chose to record at Guillaume Tell Studio in France again as the place has such a relaxed vibe. The setup there is perfect for our needs; the building used to be a cinema and has a really high ceiling so there’s a great acoustic sound. We recorded this album in the same way we did The Book Of Souls in that we’d write a song, rehearse it and then put it down together straight away while it was all fresh in our minds. There’s some very complex songs on this album which took a lot of hard work to get them exactly as we wanted them to sound, so the process was at times very challenging, but Kevin is great at capturing the essence of the band and I think it was worth the effort! I’m very proud of the result and can’t wait for fans to hear it.”
Lead singer Bruce Dickinson continues, “We’re all really excited about this album. We recorded it back in early 2019 during a break in the Legacy tour so we could maximize our touring yet still have a long set up period before release to prepare great album art and something special as a video. Of course the pandemic delayed things more – so much for the best laid plans – or should that be ‘strategies’!? The songs are very varied, and some of them are quite long. There’s also one or two songs which sound pretty different to our usual style, and I think Maiden fans will be surprised – in a good way, I hope! “
The full ‘Senjutsu’ tracklisting is:
- Senjutsu (8:20) Smith/Harris
- Stratego (4:59) Gers/Harris
- The Writing On The Wall (6:13) Smith/Dickinson
- Lost In A Lost World (9:31) Harris
- Days Of Future Past (4:03) Smith/Dickinson
- The Time Machine (7:09) Gers/Harris
- Darkest Hour (7:20) Smith/Dickinson
- Death Of The Celts (10:20) Harris
- The Parchment (12:39) Harris
- Hell On Earth (11:19) Harris
Senjutsu will be released on the following formats and available to pre-order/pre-save from Wednesday July 21st at www.ironmaiden.com:
- Standard 2CD Digipak
- Deluxe 2CD Book Format
- Deluxe heavyweight 180G Triple Black Vinyl
- Special Edition Triple Silver And Black Marble Vinyl (Details to follow)
- Special Edition Triple Red and Black Marble Vinyl (Details to follow)
- Super Deluxe Boxset featuring CD, Blu Ray and Exclusive Memorabilia
- Digital album [streaming and download]
ABOUT IRON MAIDEN:
IRON MAIDEN have over 100 million record sales, more than 2000 live performances in 63 countries, millions of fans worldwide and 16 top class studio albums already under their belts – the most recent of which was 2015’s The Book Of Souls, their first ever double studio album and most successful chart-wise to date, debuting at #1 in over 43 countries. The band has in recent years extended its legacy in a couple of other areas of particular interest to them: their own award-winning beer, Trooper, which with global sales now surpassing 30million pints, is widely acknowledged as the most successful international British beer launch of the past twenty years with Cheshire family brewers Robinsons. And also, a mobile game entitled Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast – a free to play, fantasy RPG where players combat the legions of darkness across time and space as the band’s iconic figurehead ‘Eddie’. In Summer 2022 the band are due to resume the final leg of their Legacy Of The Beast world tour which began in 2018 and has since been taken around the world, playing to almost two million fans to date.
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