Produced by long-time Iron Maiden collaborator Kevin Shirley. The band wrote and immediately recorded many tracks in the studio, resulting in a spontaneous live feel, it also contains the band's longest song to date, "Empire of the Clouds", at 18 minutes in length, which was also issued as a single for Record Store Day on 16 April 2016. While not a concept album, references to the soul and mortality are prominent, realised in the Maya-themed cover artwork, created by Mark Wilkinson.
The band's intention to record a sixteenth studio album was first revealed by vocalist Bruce Dickinson in September 2013, who expected a possible release in 2015. The album was recorded at Guillaume Tell Studios, Paris with producer Kevin Shirley from September to December 2014, with the finishing touches added in early 2015. We were delighted to discover the same magical vibe is still alive and very much kicking there!". The band originally intended to release the record earlier in 2015, but it was pushed back to 4 September while Dickinson received treatment for a cancerous tumour.
The album's title, artwork and track listing were revealed on 18 June 2015. Released by Parlophone, this is the band's first original studio album not to be issued by EMI, after both companies were acquired by Warner Music Group in 2013.
According to bassist Steve Harris, the cover art ties in with the title track, as the depiction of the band's mascot, Eddie, is based on the Maya civilization, who "believe that souls live on [after death]". To check the accuracy of the artwork, the band hired Mayanist scholar Simon Martin, who also translated the song titles into hieroglyphs. According to Martin, although the civilisation had no Book of Souls, "the Mayans are very big on souls ... So as a title, it's appropriate to Mayan culture, but it's very much Iron Maiden's own thing." Although not a concept album, references to the soul appear throughout, as do ruminations on mortality in general, with Harris explaining "as you get older, you start thinking about your own mortality and these things more".
"Shadows of the Valley", "Death or Glory", "Speed of Light" and "If Eternity Should Fail" were the first songs written for the album, the last of which, according to Dickinson, was originally written for a potential solo album which he eventually reworked as The Mandrake Project, and features the band's first collective use of drop D tuning. Smith stated that "Speed of Light" and "Death or Glory" were two of a small minority of tracks completed prior to the recording sessions, and mark the first collaboration between Smith and Dickinson (without Harris) since both members rejoined Iron Maiden in 1999. With both tracks, Smith and Dickinson deliberately wrote shorter songs in an attempt to hark back to previous singles "2 Minutes to Midnight" (1984) and "Can I Play with Madness" (1988). According to Dickinson, "Death or Glory" is about First World War triplanes.
Unlike the band's previous two albums, 2006's A Matter of Life and Death and 2010's The Final Frontier, Harris does not receive a writing credit for all of the record's songs. This is because Harris suffered two bereavements during the writing stage ("an old schoolfriend and a member of the family") which affected his creative output. The result was a more collaborative effort, with all members except drummer Nicko McBrain receiving a writing credit. One of Harris' contributions, "Tears of a Clown", which he co-wrote with Smith, is praised by Dickinson as his favourite track from The Book of Souls and is based on comedian Robin Williams' depression and suicide in 2014.
The release's final song, "Empire of the Clouds", replaced "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (from 1984's Powerslave) as the band's longest song at 18 minutes in duration. The track featured Dickinson on piano for the first time and is based on the 1930 R101 airship crash. At 92 minutes in length, it was both the longest Iron Maiden studio album and their first double studio record. Dickinson comments "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 it's going to be!
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