Welcome to day 2 of an Iron Maiden album a day! Today I spend time with the second studio album, “Killers”. While working on some concept stuff for a new project called “Loyal”. I’ll get to that in a minute though, lets talk about Iron Maidens second full length album.

“Killers” was another Maiden album that I hadn’t heard before Number of the Beast, so, when I was 8 or 9 it was yet another that I went back and was a little “What the….”. Yep, this was the second (and last) album with Paul Di’Anno on vocals. Di’Anno was replaced by Bruce Dickinson after this due to living the holy rockstar life style of alcohol and cocaine and not being able to hold his shit together. His performances on stage suffered greatly and one might imagine he walked around with a big bucket of douche at that point. This all based on stuff I’ve read over the years, Paul may have been the victim of a conspiracy plotted by Harris, Dickinson and Freddy Mercury for all I know.

ANYWAY… “Killers” features, as most Iron Maiden records, the mascot, Eddie, on the cover. Not only does this see Eddie taking shape as he will come to be seen for years to come but, he moves away from the strung out Lita Ford look and moves to more of a Poison “Glam Rock” hair dood. (see Poison in coming years)
This is probably one of the more iconic Maiden covers. I don’t know for sure but, I’m pretty sure I have drawn that cover 666 (heh) times over my life time. One of the things that drew me to Iron Maiden was the artwork. I had a poster on my wall of the “Killers” album art long before I ever actually heard the record. I’ll talk a little more about the artist and the influence on me a little later, somewhere around Seventh Son I think.

To the music. So, listening to this album that was so iconic in it’s visual representation the first thing that comes to mind is… Good thing it was the last Paul Di’Anno record. I think you can tell the guy was either not into it or trying to reach for something a little out of his range. I don’t mind him on the self titled debut. The songs on this album are just a little lacking. Believe me, I don’t only blame him, some of the music is, well, a little cheesy. Like cheesy in a way that isn’t ok. As a matter of fact I’ve read that the only song from this record they actually play live anymore is “Wrathchild”.
Stand outs for me on this listen are songs like the title track “KILLERS” .
Wrathchild is a pretty solid song as well, here, let’s usher Di’Anno out with another live performance by him… WRATHCHILD

Track Listing:
1.”The Ides of March” (instrumental)
2.”Wrathchild”
3.”Murders in the Rue Morgue”
4.”Another Life”
5.”Genghis Khan” (instrumental)
6.”Innocent Exile”
7.”Killers”
8.”Prodigal Son”
9.”Purgatory”
10.”Drifter”

(note: I went back and added the track listing to yesterdays as well)

Tomorrow shit gets fucking sweet. We welcome Bruce Dickinson with “Number of the Beast”, on Halloween no less! (I swear I didn’t even think about that until today.)
Here is todays Eddie sketch (I guess I’ve drawn this cover 667 times now…

While listening today I’ve been working out a few character designs for a project I’m working on with writer Fabian Rangel Jr. I thought I would share a couple concepts with yous…

I’ll talk more about this project soon. I’m excited to work with Fabian on this, he came to me with a great concept! It’s an honor even!