BRUCE DICKINSON has finished recording vocals for his eighth solo album, wrapping up sessions that began earlier this year at Dave Grohl's Studio 606 in Northridge, California.
"Finished vocals for the new album today, me and @brendan_duffey_audio, the producer, having a selfie in the vocal booth!" Dickinson wrote, confirming both the milestone and the producer, Brendan Duffey, who will now mix the record at his own studio in Jupiter, Florida.
The IRON MAIDEN frontman recorded the album's instrumental tracks live in January and February with his touring band — keyboardist Mistheria, bassist Tanya O'Callaghan, drummer Dave Moreno and guitarists Chris Declercq and Philip Näslund — a deliberate choice Dickinson has framed as a rejection of artificial intelligence production shortcuts in favor of a full band actually playing together in a room. SEPULTURA's Andreas Kisser also contributed percussion to the sessions.
The follow-up to 2023's "The Mandrake Project" will run 16 songs and, as previously confirmed, includes a collaboration with Dickinson's son Austin. BMG will release the album in early 2027, with Dickinson indicating that select tracks and accompanying videos will start surfacing before then, later this year.
At 67, and more than four decades into a career that runs from SAMSON through IRON MAIDEN and a parallel solo catalog, Dickinson remains one of metal's most active vocalists — the vocal booth selfie marking not an ending so much as the start of the next phase in getting a fairly packed album across the finish line.