Iron Maiden

★★★ Senjutsu

PARLOPHONE. CD/DL/LP

A double-album casting mascot Eddie Ed as a samurai.

Clocking in at 82 minutes,

Senjutsu translates as “tactics and strategy”, but it might also conceivably be the title of a game show of endurance. Tactics, though, remain Iron Maiden’s forte, this Jenga tower of riff permutations and derring-do a kind of catnip for headbangers unperturbed – nay thrilled – when songs are generously bookended by the sound of the sea (Darkest Hour). No matter that Death Of The Celts conjures a panto about Rob Roy, or or that after 11-plus minutes the title of Hell On Earth starts to seem prophetic; Maiden knows their vast constituency intimately, and as plays out – and on and on – frontman Bruce Dickinson