Singer, songwriter, pilot, author, fencing champ, air raid siren, force of nature: Bruce Dickinson is simply a man for whom many of the normal rules and restrictions of life do not seem to apply. Heavy metal’s premier Renaissance man is, of course, best known as vocalist and frontman with Iron Maiden, the greatest British metal band of all time and, some four decades after they originally formed, still one of the most widely adored bands on the planet. But as anyone that has followed Bruce’s story will tell you, singing with Maiden is just one part of his grand, substantial and fascinating musical life. Remarkably, given that he is just as likely to be found flying an airliner, Bruce has amassed a formidable catalogue as a solo artist, releasing six extraordinary studio albums that, at this point, represent his freewheeling efforts to date.

As the 20th century ground to a halt, Bruce was busy reconvening with the Iron Maiden family, and contributing to the most spectacular and undeniable comeback in heavy metal history. As a result, there was a brief pause in the forward grind of his solo work. But even as Maiden returned to the greatest of global heights, Bruce’s idiosyncratic muse was as restless as ever. Seven years on from the glories of “The Chemical Wedding”, the sixth chapter in the great man’s solo journey appeared. A more varied and introspective affair than its predecessor, “Tyranny Of Souls” touched upon balls-out hard rock (‘Devil On A Hog’), gallivanting, state-of-the-art melodic metal (‘Abduction’) and hazy, prog-fuelled psychedelia (the exquisite ‘Navigate The Seas Of The Sun’– a song inspired by cult author Erich von Däniken’s theory of extra-terrestrial life on Earth in the distant past). The album’s title track drew from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with all the pitch-black melodrama that such a conceit demands, while ‘Kill Devil Hill’ paid tribute to aviation pioneers the Wright Brothers’ first triumphant flight in 1903.