Iron Maiden: Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son [PARLOPHONE]

Why you'll love it

This Parlophone reissue puts the 2015 remaster on 180g vinyl. Seventh Son went straight to No. 1 in the UK, and "Can I Play With Madness" reached No. 3 on the UK singles chart.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Remastered
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Steve Harris had no title and no ideas for the band's seventh album until he picked up Orson Scott Card's novel Seventh Son, about a boy born with second sight. One phone call to Bruce Dickinson later, a handy title had become a full concept record about prophecy, visions and the price of knowing too much.

It was also the first Maiden album with keyboards, which gave "Moonchild" and the near ten-minute title track a grand, progressive sweep. Dickinson, whose songs had been left off Somewhere in Time, came back with renewed enthusiasm and co-writing credits; "The Evil That Men Do" and "The Clairvoyant" are galloping classics, "Infinite Dreams" builds beautifully, and Martin Birch's production keeps all six members sounding enormous. Derek Riggs' cover, with a frozen Eddie in an icy wasteland, completes the set, and it's still one of the most striking covers in metal.

The band took it on the road with the Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour, rebuilding that cover on stage and headlining Monsters of Rock at Donington. Decades later they revisited the era on the Maiden England tour, which is about as close as metal gets to a band admitting it got something exactly right the first time.

Also at Kops: more Iron Maiden on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Parlophone, a reissue of the 1988 album.