Wrapping up Iron Maiden’s classic album run of the 1980s, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son feels like the culmination of everything that had come before it, at least since singer Bruce Dickinson had joined the group six years earlier, moving away from the band’s punkier early days. A labyrinthine concept album – both in plot and song structures – the album pushes all of Maiden’s archetypal song ideas to their limits. That means the opener “Moonchild” is anchored by intricate and aggressive rhythms while lyrically setting the tone of what follows; “Can I Play With Madness” joins AOR synth hooks to the group’s galloping bass lines; and the title track is explorative progressive metal, with winding complex sections pushing its runtime into the double digits. Three of these songs hit the top ten of the UK pop charts, an indicator that Seventh Son contained some of Maiden’s strongest and most immediate material. One of those hits, “The Evil That Men Do”, introduced phrasing seemingly derived from soul music to Dickinson’s singing, while “Infinite Dreams” surprisingly featured Steve Cropper-esque guitar lines, showing that Iron Maiden was peaking both commercially and creatively as they closed out the decade.