Iron Maiden Roars Back with “The Writing On The Wall,” Metal Gods’ First New Song in 6 Years (Listen)

On Thursday, English heavy metal legends Iron Maiden made an epic return with “The Writing On The Wall,” a brand new song that marks the first new song in six years.

We've just premiered the video for our new track 'The Writing On The Wall'!

Check it out now – https://t.co/EKOMGIGeiA#IronMaiden #TheWritingOnTheWall #TWOTW pic.twitter.com/KyTTBJVQFf

— Iron Maiden (@IronMaiden) July 16, 2021

To date, Iron Maiden has released 16 studio albums, the most recent being 2015’s double-album The Book of Souls, with “The Writing On The Wall” being the band’s first release since that time frame.

A return this anticipated came after a series of cryptic teases around the world, fans’ interest piqued globally until the ultimate reveal, which came with a corresponding animated music video — a fittingly dynamic visual accompaniment for the song:

Per a news release, “The Writing On The Wall” was written by Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith and vocalist Bruce Dickinson, produced by Kevin Shirley and co-produced by Maiden bassist and founder-member Steve Harris.

The music video concept came in part from Dickinson, as a news release details:

Bruce Dickinson initially had a concept for the video which came to fruition in collaboration with two Award-winning former Pixar executives and long-standing Maiden fans Mark Andrews & Andrew Gordon. The pair have over 50 years of animation industry experience between them at the very top-level including work on The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Brave, Monsters Inc & Finding Nemo. With partners lining up to get involved with the project they chose BlinkInk, a London based animation studio celebrated for their work with a variety of global brands from Adidas to Coca-Cola and a number of high-profile music video.

Said the iconic vocalist of how it all turned out:

“I had a pretty clear idea of the concept to accompany the song and when I met Mark and Andrew, on Zoom, it quickly became clear we were all very much on the same wavelength, and this was reinforced with the addition of Nicos and his young BlinkInk team. Our weekly team Zoom meetings were then usually both highly creative and a lot of fun!  

I’m very proud of the way the video turned out, it’s more like a mini-film really. I knew it was going to work out as soon as Mark brought my treatment to life with his incredible storyboards – I thought we could make something very special together. I think we did and hope our fans will agree. In fact it’s pretty much created by Maiden fans!!”