There are albums that sell by the truckload and albums that quietly reroute a career, and Accident Of Birth belongs firmly in the second camp.
Released in May 1997, Bruce Dickinson’s fourth solo record arrived at the lowest commercial ebb heavy metal had known in a generation, with grunge having flattened half the genre and the other half still picking itself out of the rubble. Dickinson himself was four years out of Iron Maiden, his last outing Skunkworks had confused as many fans as it converted, and the bookies would have offered long odds on him ever standing on a stage alongside Steve Harris again. Then came this: twelve tracks of unapologetic, gloriously overblown heavy metal, made with Roy Z behind the desk and Adrian Smith…
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In 1994, having left Iron Maiden for a time (he rejoined in 1999), Bruce Dickinson released his second solo album, entitled Balls To Picasso. Named in honour of the cubist pioneer whose representations of spherical objects were as squares, and reflected on the cover in graffiti style on a tiled bathroom wall, the album belied its irreverent title by solidifying Dickinson’s reputation as a serious solo artist.