Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

Iron Maiden – Piece Of Mind

1983 Capitol Records

5 Stars

Iron Maiden is arguably the greatest heavy metal band of all time and on their third album The Number Of The Beast they proved not only to be considered among the greatest band they produced what is thought of by many as the best heavy metal album of all time. This album featured first time lead vocals by Bruce Dickinson and classic metal guitars by Adrian Smith and Dave Murray that would influence every band claiming to be a metal band from that point forward.

In 1982 The Number Of The Beast came out and found itself being protested and the band being accused of being Satanist. The band often uses dark imagery in their songs but the lyrics of the song The Number Of The Beast were inspired by a dream bass player Steve Harris had after watching the movie Damien: The Omen II. This dream was a nightmare and scared him and things that scare you sometimes make the best art and so the song was created. Iron Maiden are not Satanist they pull inspiration from horror films, television shows, books, biblical references and even other songs by other bands. They are fairly harmless they just want to scare you a little bit.

I did not acquire the album for many years after its release because as a ten year old child you really didn’t have a shot at getting your parents to buy you an album called The Number Of The Beast that featured a monster (band mascot Eddie) and a devil on the cover. Honestly the album scared me back in those days a friend of mine had it on vinyl and we’d go to his house and scare ourselves listening to it. Kids always want to be scared and I remember winning a poster of the album cover at a local festival and I put it on the wall inside my closet because it scared me but I still liked it and wanted to look at it every now and then . . . plus my parents didn’t know I had it and it probably wouldn’t have went over well.

Of the eight songs on the album two of the greatest heavy metal songs ever written appeared one being the previously mentioned The Number Of The Beast and the amazing Run To The Hills. You will want this whole album if you want to know metal at its best but for those of you on a budget and buying tracks from iTunes or some other download service you’ll want to be sure to get Hallowed Be Thy Name and The Prisoner. Newer versions of the album contain either one or two bonus tracks.

If you like any heavy metal band that has ever made its existence known then you probably should own this album.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin P. Johnson all rights reserved.

Album art and song titles and lyrics are used as fair use for review purposes and will be removed at the copyright holders request.