Iron Maiden’s long-awaited, 17th studio album, Senjutsu, is out globally this Friday, September 3, via BMG. Frontman Bruce Dickinson spoke about the new release with journalist Derek Scancarelli for Forbes. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Forbes: Iron Maiden has had Senjutsu on ice since 2019, is it a relief to finally release it into the world?

Bruce Dickinson: "Absolutely. It's such a great record, we couldn't sit on it for any longer. Curiously, because people have been waiting for something to fall off the high table of rock and roll, some crumbs! I think it actually is a fabulous time to release it for all the wrong reasons, but it is."

Forbes: Before we pick the new music apart, are you feeling okay? I know that you’ve been enduring a mild case of COVID-19. (This interview was conducted on August 19, 2021)

Dickinson: "I'm absolutely fine. Literally, I'm just waiting for these little lateral flow test things that you have to do, self-testing. I'm taking those every day, I'm thinking of making a collage out of them or something at the end. I don't know. It's just going through whatever it is, the 10 day isolation at home because I did get COVID. I tested positive for it, just like a week yesterday, basically. And I've been absolutely fine. I have the same symptoms that you would get from like a... you feel a bit s***ty for two or three days, you sweat a bit, you have a bit of a stuffy nose, a small cough in my case and my sense of smell kind of went AWOL, but it's kind of coming back now.

"I'm not particularly a vaccine skeptic in the slightest, I've had both doses and if somebody wants me to have another couple, I'll be first in the queue because I think I would have been probably potentially a lot more sick had I not been vaccinated. Me and my partner, I had the Pfizer vaccine, she had the AstraZeneca, we both got sick. She's over it all. Basically I'm pretty much over it now, I'm just waiting for my little test to go negative before I unleash myself on the supermarket."

Read the complete interview at Forbes.

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.”

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!"

Senjutsu will be released on the following formats and is available to pre-order/pre-save at 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]

Tracklisting:

"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

"Stratego":

"The Writing On The Wall" video:

"The Writing On The Wall" (SFX Version)

Senjutsu - In The Studio videos:

In a UK first, Iron Maiden are celebrating the launch of Senjutsu with two other unique products for their fans. 226 of the Asda stores will carry a display unit with an exclusive album edition of Trooper’s Sun & Steel Japanese Lager and their very own album T-shirt featuring band icon, Eddie.

“Iron Maiden are an incredible British institution and the best in their field so it’s really exciting for us to be able to reward their legions of fans with some fantastic products for the launch of their hugely anticipated new album, Senjutsu on September 3rd”, claims Andrew Thompson, Asda’s Senior Manager on Entertainment.

“There are few bands in the world that can provide such a breadth of products that their fan base love and we’re delighted that Asda respect music enough to partner with us across several sectors. Every Maiden studio album launch is an event and their fans get behind it like no other. This partnership offers something for everyone all in one place,” adds Warner Music’s SVP Commercial, Derek Allen