Piece Of Mind

A stunning piece of vinyl with a very good gatefold cover a great package.

Piece of Mind is the fourth studio album by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden, originally released in 1983 by EMI, and by Capitol in Canada and the US, where it was reissued later by Sanctuary/Columbia Records. It was the first album to feature drummer Nicko McBrain, who had recently left the Paris-based band Trust and has been Iron Maiden's drummer ever since.

Piece of Mind was a critical and commercial success, reaching No. 3 in the UK Albums Chart and achieving platinum certification in the UK and North America.

In December 1982, drummer Clive Burr ended his association with the band due to personal and tour schedule problems and was replaced by Nicko McBrain, previously of French band Trust, as well as Pat Travers, and Streetwalkers.^[2] Soon afterwards, the band went to Jersey to compose the songs, taking over the hotel Le Chalet as it was out of season, and rehearsing in its restaurant. In February, the band journeyed for the first time to the Bahamas to record the album at Nassau's Compass Point Studios. Recordings were finished in March, and afterwards the album was mixed at Electric Lady Studios in New York City.^[3][4]

This is the first of four Iron Maiden albums that were not named after a song featured on the album itself (though the lyrics in the song "Still Life" contain the expression "peace of mind"). Originally, the release's working title was Food for Thought, once the band had decided that Eddie would be lobotomised on the front cover, until the band came up with the title Piece of Mind in a pub in Jersey, during the album's writing stage.^[5]

Included in the liner notes is a slightly altered version of a passage from the Book of Revelation, which reads:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more Death. Neither sorrow, nor crying. Neither shall there be any more brain; for the former things are passed away.^[6]

The actual text (from Chapter 21, Verse 4) is nearly identical, except that it says "neither shall there be any more pain", rather than brain, which was added as a pun on the album's title.^[6]

In a lower corner on the back side of the album cover, there is this message: "No synthesizers or ulterior motives".