IRON MAIDEN vocalist Bruce Dickinson has confirmed he will record his next solo album in 2026, with a release targeted for 2027 — strategically coinciding with IRON MAIDEN's confirmed year off from touring. The timing is deliberate: with MAIDEN taking all of 2027 away from the road, Dickinson will have the rare luxury of promoting and touring behind a solo record without schedule conflicts with his primary band.
Dickinson has promised the album will include some "bone-crushingly heavy" songs, a description that has electrified fans who recall the heavier moments of his solo catalog — from the thrash-adjacent fury of "Chemical Wedding" to the galloping metal of "Tyranny Of Souls." His most recent solo effort, 2024's "The Mandrake Project," was his first solo album in nearly two decades and earned strong reviews for its ambitious scope and musical diversity, demonstrating that Dickinson's creative energy remains boundless even as he approaches his late sixties.
The follow-up to "The Mandrake Project" will be recorded during gaps in IRON MAIDEN's busy 2026 "Run For Your Lives" 50th-anniversary world tour schedule. That tour, which has MEGADETH and ANTHRAX as North American support, is already generating massive ticket demand and is widely considered the biggest metal touring package of the year. Dickinson's ability to balance the physical demands of fronting IRON MAIDEN's two-hour-plus stadium shows with studio creativity is a testament to his legendary work ethic and vocal endurance.
Details on producers, studios, and collaborators have not yet been revealed, though speculation has centered on whether Dickinson will reunite with longtime collaborator Roy Z, who produced "The Chemical Wedding," "Accident Of Birth," and "Tyranny Of Souls," or whether he will explore new production partnerships as he did with "The Mandrake Project." Either way, the prospect of new heavy solo material from one of metal's greatest vocalists has generated enormous anticipation.