11 Best Iron Maiden Epics

Almost a song of two distinct acts - much like many of Maiden's prog-flavoured latter-day efforts - the title track from sixteenth album The Book of Souls prowls with an assured mastery for its first half, before erupting into prime galloping metal territory for its home stretch.

Pulled from the Gers-Harris factory of songwriting once more, it grows and grows into a hurtling crescendo of propulsive brilliance hard to match across the rest of the record - and it puts the wider indulgences elsewhere on the album, plus predecessor The Final Frontier, to shame.