"Fear Of The Dark is the most consistently strong and varied set of songs we've ever written," comments founder and bassist Steve Harris, "and the sound of this record surpasses by far anything we've done previously. With No Prayer For The Dying [the band's gold Epic label debut, released in 1990], we took a year off, then dived in and recorded almost live. This time, we spent a great deal of time and attention on the actual recording process, much to the benefit of the album."

Fear Of The Dark was co-produced by Steve Harris and Martin Birch, the band's long-time producer. Although Harris has always been integral to the overall Iron Maiden sound, this is the first time he has been engaged in every stage of album production. Fear Of The Dark is also the first album to be recorded at Harris' new Barnyard Studio in Essex. No Prayer For The Dying was recorded in Harris' barn on the Rolling Stones Mobile Unit; the building has since undergone extensive renovation and the installation of a fully-equipped, state-of-the-art recording studio.

Fear Of The Dark also marks the songwriting debut of guitarist Janick Gers (a member of Iron Maiden since January, 1991), who collaborated on five tracks. Founding guitarist Dave Murray also doubled his normal song input, collaborating on two tracks; all other songs were composed by Steve Harris and vocalist Bruce Dickinson. In addition, Fear Of The Dark is the first Iron Maiden album not to use a Derek Riggs illustration for the cover. After ten years of Riggs' trademark artwork, the band felt it was time for a change and brought in illustrator Melvyn Grant to create a new and even more menacing design.

Following are Bruce Dickinson's comments on some of the key tracks on Iron Maiden's Fear Of The Dark:

"Be Quick Or Be Dead": "I wrote this song in reaction to all of the big business scandals that have plagued and will, I think, continue to plague the quote unquote Establishment. I'm speaking of the BCCI case, the collapse of Robert Maxwell's empire, the relations between the Japanese government and its stock market, the U.S. Congressional bank scandal. There's so much hypocrisy flying around. The song says the only way for a kid with ambition to cut through it all is to be as fluent and wily as these guys but to use those qualities against them."

"Fear Is The Key": "This was a song written, very obliquely at first, about AIDS. Then Freddie [Mercury] died halfway through the writing of the song. There's a line that goes 'Nobody cares 'til somebody famous dies'--that's a reference to Freddie and, though he's still alive, Magic Johnson. There's a lot of people who think they're safe 'cos they're heterosexual, though half of Africa is dying of AIDS. The song says that AIDS has stolen the right to be spontaneous in sexuality."

"Wasting Love": "Just what the title says, really. About people who spend their time screwing their brains out to fill this empty space inside them. If they stood still a moment, they might get in touch with their real feelings. I'm not condemning, just empathizing--I've done it just as much as anybody else!"

"Chains Of Misery": "It's the idea that whenever something good happens to people--like when you meet someone special--almost inevitably there's some mechanism that says 'Hold on, this is too good, let's screw it up!' I wanted to give a name to this process, or create a character who sits on your shoulder and hauls on these 'chains of misery' and pulls you back down from your high."

Past Iron Maiden albums like Powerslave and Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son drew upon mythology, history, and films for their lyrical inspiration. But, as is clear from Bruce Dickinson's comments, many of the songs on Fear Of The Dark deal with topics straight from today's headlines.

"When we started out, it was new and innovative for a metal band to do those kind of songs," says Dickinson. "As we went on through these grueling world tours, it became easy to fall back on those themes and ideas, protected as we are on tour from so much of real life. I think being off the road and back in England for a time between records made everyone realize that there's a big reality out there which needed writing about, that's absolutely applicable to Iron Maiden. Our old lyrics were allegorical, if you chose to see them that way. But Fear Of The Dark is much more straight-between-the-eyes. That's where this decade seems to be going, and that's where Iron Maiden is going as well."

(from the Fear of the Dark press release)