IRON MAIDEN

Metal mania.

It’s been 50 years since Harris, armed with his cheap bass guitar, founded what would become one of the best-known bands of the new wave of British heavy metal, one that still packs venues all over the world. The rockers celebrate their anniversary in this visual history book, and it’s hard to imagine a more comprehensive one. Bookended by a foreword by Harris and a “backword” by singer Dickinson, the first pages point to how well preserved the Iron Maiden archive is, with photographs of a young Harris alongside some of his diary entries, fliers for shows, newspaper clippings, and images of the young band in action. The book tracks the band’s rise, from its appearance on the influential Metal for Muthas compilation to its worldwide breakthrough in 1982 with the now-legendary album The Number of the Beast, its first record to feature Dickinson on vocals. Each album and tour gets its own section, with admirable attention paid to cover boy Eddie, the band’s nightmare-inducing, zombielike mascot, and the artist who created him, Derek Riggs. The band photographs by Ross Halfin and official band photographer John McMurtrie are excellent, but there’s much more: images of the band’s gear, galleries of concert T-shirts, and pictures of “Ed Force One,” the tour plane that Dickinson piloted. (The singer contains multitudes.) The text functions as an approachable and informative history of the band, highlighting its frequent personnel changes and its often literary lyrics, which at times drew from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, G.K. Chesterton, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. This is an astonishingly well-documented and lovingly curated look at a band that changed rock forever. Its fans will love it, but the appeal isn’t limited to them.

A headbanging romp of a beautifully designed book.