Iron Maiden released their first new music in six years on Thursday, a song titled “The Writing on the Wall,” and unveiled the track via an animated mini-movie that answers the question, “What if Mad Max was crossed with Bible stories, The Matrix and Lord of the Rings...but it was also a cartoon?”
The video is based on a concept from Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, who teamed with two former Pixar executives and the London animation studio BlinkInk to make his vision a reality.
The six-minute-plus film is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where devastated and dying people, as well as fat-cat businessmen and dictators, are slowly making their way towards a fortress — while being watched by a mysterious hooded figure and his magical motorcycle gang.
Inside the fortress, thousands are dancing around a pit of green fire to music played by an evil, multi-armed clown deejay. The entity in charge is drawing his life essence from a man and a woman who are imprisoned in fluid-filled tubes.
The hooded figure blasts his way into the fortress and then dramatically falls backwards into the pit. He’s reborn as an armor-clad version of Iron Maiden’s beloved mascot, Eddie, who, along with his motorcycle gang, starts kicking butt, destroying the fortress and killing the bad guys in various gruesome ways.
Eddie frees the imprisoned man and woman and they ride off into the sunset in an old-fashioned convertible.
“I had a pretty clear idea of the concept to accompany the song…I’m very proud of the way the video turned out,” says Dickinson in a statement.
“I thought we could make something very special together,” he says of his collaborators. “I think we did and hope our fans will agree.”
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