Nicholas Kobe, Staff Writer 

[BMG; 2024]

Rating: 5/10

Key Tracks: “Afterglow of Ragnarok”, “Fingers in the Wounds” “Mistress of Mercy”

Bruce Dickinson, one of metal’s greatest storytellers, goes all out for his new solo album The Mandrake Project. Following up on 2005’s Tyranny of Souls, this is Dickinson’s first solo album in almost 20 years. Of course, in those 20 years, Bruce has been very busy. He was best known as the lead singer of Iron Maiden, leading the band through classic album after classic album. Bruce joined the band on The Number of the Beast and persisted until 1993. He returned in 2000 for the critically acclaimed Brave New World and has continued to tour and write with Iron Maiden, as recently as 2021’s Senjutsu. Behind the scenes, however, Bruce has been working on The Mandrake Project for almost 20 years. In some ways that pays off, but there are some major oversights.

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Musically, Bruce has room under his name that he doesn’t have under Iron Maiden, and that benefits The Mandrake Project. Other band members, like bassist Steve Harris, have always played a strong role in Maiden’s songwriting. Beyond just not having to consult the rest of the band on ideas, The Mandrake Project lets Dickinson stretch his sound beyond the soaring classic metal he pioneered with Iron Maiden.

Despite being 20 years in the making, the way Bruce structures this record is very similar to recent Iron Maiden albums, particularly Senjutsu. The first similarity is the focus on long, over-the-top songs that trod along at a speed walking pace. I think this style suits Bruce’s solo better than it suits Maiden. He has more space creatively to move away from the Maiden staples and let these long songs play with weird and interesting ideas. All of these experiments work well, from the Zeppelin-influenced ballad “Fingers in the Wounds”, the orchestral, grand beginning of “Shadow of the Gods”, the spaghetti western style of “Resurrection Men”, and the prog rock hommage “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)”. 

Even with these other influences, however, The Mandrake Project is still a metal record through and through. It’s heavier than Iron Maiden, who were surpassed in sheer brutality decades ago. From the more groove metal leanings of “Mistress of Mercy” and the dissonant chugging on the verses of “Afterglow of Ragnarok”, Bruce handles all of these stylistic changes comfortably. His voice still sounds great, and never out of place over whatever instrumental comes next.

Speaking of “Afterglow of Ragnarok”, however, the massively catchy and soaring chorus makes it very clear we haven’t strayed too far from his roots. He even goes as far as re-doing “If Eternity Should Fail”, a track he wrote with The Mandrake Project in mind, but wound up on Iron Maiden’s 2015 album The Book of Souls. Swapping Steve Harris’ signature bass gallop with walls background vocals makes this rendition feel a lot grander, but less energetic than the original.

The other biggest carryover from Senjutsu is, unfortunately, the mixing. Both records suffer from sounding muddy. It’s a wall of sound hitting you that feels disorienting and overwhelming, and not in a good way. Everything is so muddy it feels impossible to make out what instrument or vocal line is supposed to be leading the song at any given moment. On The Mandrake Project, this hurts the album arguably where it counts most. Compositionally, all of these songs build nicely, but when that climax comes, the production turns what should be an epic moment into a wall of uncoordinated sound. It’s a massive shame because across the board Bruce and his backing band are giving very good performances. Every instrument is played with the type of precision you’d expect from a high-profile record like this.

The sloppy production of this record unfortunately hits Bruce’s voice the hardest. His low to mid register, which he spends a lot of the album in, sounds like he’s slurring his words. It’s a massive letdown considering, after seeing Iron Maiden live in 2022, I can confirm that Dickinson’s voice is still good. He has some great vocal lines on this record on songs like “Afterglow of Ragnarok” and “Finger in the Wounds”, but to see that potential squandered was the biggest disappointment of The Mandrake Project.

Another less dramatic letdown for me was how this record operated lyrically. The Mandrake Project is also the name of a tie-in comic book series made to accompany the story of the album. The problem is the “story” of The Mandrake Project, in any form, is barely shown in the lyrics of the actual album. The best concept records, such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall work as a narrative, because it lyrically devotes itself to making the plot somewhat easy to follow. The Mandrake Project does not. This story of a man attempting to bring his brother back from the dead is only touched on in about half the tracks. I had to read the comic synopsis in addition to the song lyrics just to give you that one-sentence summary. 

I think The Mandrake Project could have been a better record had it leaned into the story, and made its story comprehensible on lyrics alone. The other non-plot songs have decent lyrics but are topically all over the place. With Dickinson’s voice constantly being buried under every instrument in the mix, good luck deciphering any of these songs, much less an overarching plot.

As a whole album, there’s a lot in The Mandrake Project that most metal fans will probably be into. In terms of performance and composition, The Mandrake Project is great, making these very long songs compelling all the way through. However, due to the consistent irritation of a bad mix and all-over-the-place lyrics, there are too many major flaws with The Mandrake Project holding it back from being excellent, forcing it to settle for just “good”.

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