Review by Sonny for Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind (1983)

I've let it be known before that I preferred the rawness that Paul Di'Anno brought to Maiden's sound over the more polished vocal histrionics of Bruce Dickinson, because I just prefer that almost punky, aggressive style. There's no denying, though, that the switch from Di'Anno to Dickinson made Maiden far more palatable to the music press and, consequently, far more popular amongst the young fans who were getting turned onto metal (in England anyway) at this time. Number of the Beast was a decent record with a couple of excellent tracks that was symptomatic of a band forging a new direction and still finding their feet, but despite this it sold massively and catapulted Maiden to the top of the metal tree. The follow up may, therefore, have been problematic, but Steve Harris and co. ironed-out (sorry!) the uneveness of NotB and turned in my favourite post Di'Anno Maiden album, Piece of Mind. Some real classics here, Revelations, Die With Your Boots On and the awesome gallop of the Charge of the Light Brigade-themed The Trooper are all firm favourites. In fact, the first six tracks are one of the best sequences of songs I've heard on a heavy metal album. Even the three final, supposedly lesser, tracks with their fantastical 1,000,000 Years BC-style lyrics are very good songs. With this and the subsequent Powerslave, for me, Maiden hit the high water mark of the Bruce era and sadly were never this good again.