According to Official UK Charts Company, Iron Maiden are way ahead in the race to top the Official Albums Chart in he UK.

The band’s 16th studio album, The Book Of Souls is currently over 30,000 chart sales ahead of nearest rival Jess Glynne, and have a good chance of scoring their fifth Official Albums Chart Number 1 this Friday.

On August 26th, Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson attended a listening session for The Book Of Souls, at Guillaume Tell Studios in Paris, France. In the clip below Dickinson performs sections of the epic 18-minute song "Empire Of The Clouds" on a piano.

The Book Of Souls is Iron Maiden's first album in 5 years. It was released worldwide on September 4th.

Iron Maiden’s recently released new video for "Speed Of Light" racked up over 3.2 million views in just three days, and is now pushing the 4 million mark. Written by guitarist Adrian Smith and vocalist Bruce Dickinson, "Speed Of Light" is taken from their new double album The Book Of Souls, due for global release on September 4th through BMG in North America. New behind-the-scenes footage on the video can be seen below.

The video was produced and directed by Llexi Leon with animation and visual effects by The Brewery Production Company. A huge Iron Maiden fan, this is Llexi Leon’s first music video. Creator of the cult comic book series Eternal Descent – an IP that digitally animated a cast list of metal and hard rock luminaries, Leon has further expanded into the video gaming industry. He chose to collaborate with The Brewery who’s previous film credits include 2010’s punk-rock inspired Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll with Andy Serkis, 2012’s music festival themed Spike Island with Emilia Clarke & more recently were providing VFX for the Sky Atlantic biopic on Ian Fleming.

The video is an homage to four decades of video gaming juxta-posed alongside Iron Maiden’s 40 years of incredible visual canon centring on their talisman, Eddie, as he travels through space and time to complete his Herculean task.

Behind-the-scenes footage:

“Speed Of Light” video:

The Book Of Souls was recorded in Paris with their longstanding producer Kevin “Caveman” Shirley in late 2014, with the finishing touches added earlier this year. However, the band decided to delay its release so that vocalist Bruce Dickinson, who was recently given the all-clear from a tumour, would have time to recuperate sufficiently to join in the preparations for the album’s launch.

The stunning cover art was created by Mark Wilkinson who has worked with the band previously, and because this 11 track album has a total running time of 92 minutes, it is Iron Maiden’s first ever double studio album. There’s a broader split on the song-writing compared to previous Maiden records, with bassist and founder member Steve Harris contributing to seven of the tracks; six of them with Maiden’s guitarists and one sole composition. This is also the first time since 1984’s Powerslave that an Iron Maiden studio album also features two tracks written solely by Bruce Dickinson, one of which is the longest song Maiden has ever recorded! And also two Dickinson/Smith collaborations.

Steve comments: “We approached this album in a different way to how we’ve recorded previously. A lot of the songs were actually written while we were there in the studio and we rehearsed and recorded them straight away while they were still fresh, and I think that immediacy really shows in the songs, they have almost a live feel to them I think. I’m very proud of The Book Of Souls, we all are, and we can’t wait for our fans to hear it, and especially to take it out on the road next year!”

Bruce continues: “We’re really excited about The Book Of Souls and had a fantastic time creating it. We started working on the album in late summer 2014 and recorded it at Guillame Tell Studios in Paris, where we’d done the Brave New World album back in 2000 so the studio holds special memories for all of us. We were delighted to discover the same magical vibe is still alive and very much kicking there! So we immediately felt at home and the ideas just started flowing. By the time we’d finished we all agreed that each track was such an integral part of the whole body of work that if it needed to be a double album, then double its going to be!”

The Book Of Souls tracklisiting:

Disc 1
“If Eternity Should Fail“ (Dickinson) 8:28
“Speed Of Light“ (Smith/ Dickinson) 5:01
“The Great Unknown“ (Smith/ Harris) 6:37
“The Red And The Black“ (Harris) 13:33
“When The River Runs Deep“ (Smith/ Harris) 5:52
“The Book Of Souls“ (Gers/ Harris) 10:27

Disc 2
“Death Or Glory“ (Smith/ Dickinson) 5:13
“Shadows Of The Valley“ (Gers/ Harris) 7:32
“Tears Of A Clown“ (Smith/ Harris) 4:59
“The Man Of Sorrows“ (Murray/ Harris) 6:28
“Empire Of The Clouds“ (Dickinson) 18:01

Formats:

- 2CD deluxe hardbound book limited edition
- 2CD standard edition
- Triple heavyweight black vinyl
- High res audio (24-bit Mastered for ITunes and non-Mastered for iTunes)
- Standard res audio (16 bit/ 44.1 kHz)

The Book Of Souls is the band’s 16th studio album since their eponymous debut in 1980 charted at #4 in the UK, in a career achieving sales of over 90 million albums worldwide. Their previous album, 2010’s The Final Frontier was Maiden’s most successful chart-wise to date, reaching #1 in 28 countries and was their highest chart debut in the U.S reaching #4 in the Billboard 200.

Due to Bruce’s illness the band had to delay touring plans but promise to be out on the road again early next year, giving time for Bruce to make a full physical recovery to be ready for the rigours of Maiden live performances.

Check out BraveWords’ report from Iron Maiden’s Trooper Beer tasting event in Tampa, Florida at this location.