Iron Maiden announce new album, Senjutsu: "The songs are very varied, and some of them are quite long"

It's a wonderful time to be an Iron Maiden fan right now: following the band's epic return last week with new single The Writing On The Wall, they've now announced details of the full (double) album from which it is taken, Senjutsu.

The follow-up to 2015's The Book Of Souls is due out on September 3 via Parlophone, and is a double-album consisting of 10 songs running at a grand total of just under 82 minutes. Inspired by the East and with an awesome new samurai Eddie, frontman Bruce Dickinson explains of the ambitious full-length: "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 maximise 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!”

Read this: The first reaction to Iron Maiden’s new single, The Writing On The Wall

Steve Harris – who co-produced Senjutsu alongside longstanding producer Kevin Shirley – says of the creative process: “We chose to record at Guillaume Tell Studio in France again as the place has such a relaxed vibe. The set-up 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.”

See the Senjutsu tracklist:

1. Senjutsu
2. Stratego
3. The Writing On The Wall
4. Lost In A Lost World
5. Days Of Future Past
6. The Time Machine
7. Darkest Hour
8. Death Of The Celts
9. The Parchment
10. Hell On Earth

And check out the artwork, created by Mark Wilkinson and based on an idea by Steve:

Cannot. Wait.

To bide our time until September 3, let's give TWOTW another few spins…

Read this: 9 lesser known Iron Maiden songs that everyone needs to hear