Tyranny of Souls is a heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 released by Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six...

 vocalist Bruce Dickinson

Bruce Dickinson

Paul Bruce Dickinson is an English singer, songwriter, airline pilot, fencer, broadcaster, author, screenwriter, actor and marketing director, best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden....

 on 23 May 2005

2005 in music

-Events:*During the year 2005, 12 rock music albums scored number 1 in the USA. This was the first time even ten albums have scored number 1 since 1996.-January:...

. The cover art is a work by renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 artist Hans Memling

Hans Memling

Hans Memling was a German-born Early Netherlandish painter.-Life and works:Born in Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt in the Middle Rhein region, it is believed that Memling served his apprenticeship at Mainz or Cologne, and later worked in the Netherlands under Rogier van der Weyden...

. It is Bruce's first solo album since rejoining Maiden in 1999 and his most recent studio album as a solo artist.

The songwriting on the album was split between Roy Z

Roy Z

Roy Z is a guitarist, songwriter and producer known for his work with Bruce Dickinson , Rob Halford and Judas Priest. He also is the founder of Tribe of Gypsies, a hard rock band with Latin influences.-Biography:...

 and Dickinson. During composition, Roy sent recordings of riffs to Dickinson, who was on tour with Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six...

. Dickinson subsequently wrote lyrics and melodies. Roy also served as the album's producer and played all guitar parts as well as some supplemental bass guitar and piano parts. Drummer David Moreno featured a double bass for the album, notably using it for a blast beat

Blast beat

A blast beat is a drum beat often associated with extreme metal and grindcore, although its usage predates the genres, and is utilised by many different styles of metal...

 in "Abduction" and for the opening of "Soul Intruders."

The song Kill Devil Hill is inspired by the successful flight by the Wright brothers

Wright brothers

The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur , were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903...

 in 1903. See Kill Devil Hills.

The song Navigate the Seas of the Sun is inspired by Erich Von Däniken

Erich von Däniken

Erich Anton Paul von Däniken is a Swiss author best known for his controversial claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968...

's theory about extraterrestrial presence on Earth long ago and about man dealing with that in the future.

The title track A Tyranny of Souls is somewhat based on Shakespeare's tragedy MacBeth

Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

, and includes direct quotes and lines from the play throughout the song.

Track listing

1. "Mars Within" – 1:30
2. "Abduction
   Abduction (song)
   "Abduction" is a song by Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson from his sixth solo album A Tyranny of Souls. The song is about Bruce Dickinson himself who is being abducted and being experimented on.-Music video:...
   
   " – 3:52
3. "Soul Intruders" – 3:54
4. "Kill Devil Hill" – 5:09
5. "Navigate the Seas of the Sun" – 5:53
6. "River of No Return" – 5:15
7. "Power of the Sun" – 3:31
8. "Devil on a Hog" – 4:03
9. "Believil" – 4:52
10. "A Tyranny of Souls" – 5:54
11. "Eternal" (Japanese only) - 5:59

Chart positions

News - The MetalList Webzine - metal music zine

Chart (2005)	Peak position
Austria Albums Chart Austria Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...	58
Canadian Albums Chart Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...	71
Finnish Albums Chart Finland Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...	10
French Albums Chart France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...	101
German Albums Chart Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...	39
Greek Albums Chart Greece Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....	2
Hungary Albums Chart Hungary Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...	24
Italian Albums Chart Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...	34
Japan Albums Chart Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...	75
Netherlands Albums Chart Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...	96
Swedish Albums Chart Sweden Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....	10
Swiss Albums Chart Switzerland Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....	73
UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...	65
US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	180

Personnel

• Bruce Dickinson
  Bruce Dickinson
  Paul Bruce Dickinson is an English singer, songwriter, airline pilot, fencer, broadcaster, author, screenwriter, actor and marketing director, best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden....
  
   - Lead Vocals
• Roy Z
  Roy Z
  Roy Z is a guitarist, songwriter and producer known for his work with Bruce Dickinson , Rob Halford and Judas Priest. He also is the founder of Tribe of Gypsies, a hard rock band with Latin influences.-Biography:...
  
   - all Guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  s and Bass (tracks 7,9)
• David Moreno - drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Ray "Greezer" Burke - Bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
   (tracks 1,4,5,6,8,10)
• Juan Perez - Bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
   (tracks 2,3)
• Maestro Mistheria - all Keyboards