IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson has released his brand new single, “Rain On The Graves”, accompanied by a thrilling video introducing Bruce’s live band, comprising his long-term co-writer and producer Roy “Z” Ramirez, drummer Dave Moreno, bass player Tanya O’Callaghan and keyboard maestro Mistheria.

“Rain On The Graves” is the second single to be taken from Dickinson’s forthcoming solo album “The Mandrake Project” which will be released on March 1 via BMG. Bruce and Roy recorded the LP largely at Los Angeles’s Doom Room, with Roy doubling up as both guitarist and bassist. The recording lineup for “The Mandrake Project” was rounded out by Mistheria and Moreno, both of whom also featured on Bruce’s last solo studio album, “Tyranny Of Souls”, in 2005.

“I had the chorus lyric since I visited Grasmere for a wedding back in 2012,” explains Bruce, “and it wasn’t difficult years later to create the rest of the song with so much rich imagery in my head!” It is a classic Dickinson/Roy Z collaboration; a catchy but heavy piece — full of melody but stripping out the spoken vocals of the verses in almost poetic fashion — maybe a further ode to the great wordsmith who inspired the title, somehow juxtaposed with music fit to raise the ghost of Robert Johnson at his metaphorical crossroads.

With a video shot entirely in a wintery Cornwall — again with director Ryan Mackfall — we get to see Bruce the actor, a preacher no less, making his own deal with the Devil and dragging his “House Band From Hell” into the bargain.