Iron Maiden’s fifth album arrived at just the right time. 1984 was a perfect storm for heavy metal: its popularity was surging, music videos were bringing heavy metal to millions of young people, and the new teen generation was consuming music at an unprecedented rate, creating a dazzling and diverse array of superstars. The zeitgeist was primed for Maiden to capitalize, and they did just that with an ambitious, relentlessly catchy, and scorching album that would see their global popularity explode.

Recorded in early 1984, once again with Martin Birch at the helm and for the second consecutive year at Compass Point in the Bahamas, Powerslave might not be Iron Maiden’s absolute artistic pinnacle, but it comes awfully close. The band knew they were on the cusp of something gigantic, and they went big, reflected in Derek Riggs’s gorgeous, grandiose, and intricately detailed Egyptian-themed artwork. Fresh, vibrant, and brimming with energy, the music inside was bracing and triumphant.

Songwriting-wise, the band swings for the fences on Powerslave, and 32 of its 50 minutes comprises the best work the band would ever do, its high points so strong that the lesser moments are easy to forgive. Admittedly, the instrumental “Losfer Words (Big ‘Orra)” is a complete toss-off, an unnecessary momentum killer three tracks in, but the three other mid-album tracks, which have never been performed live by the band, more than hold their own. “Flash Of The Blade,” a solo composition written by the fencing-obsessed Bruce Dickinson, is a brisk little number bolstered with a lively chorus hook and a whimsical neoclassical bridge. Steve Harris has a little fun with the swordplay theme with the more stately “The Duellists”; typical of his songwriting, he gives Dickinson a colossal challenge with his overly wordy lyrics and seemingly impossible vocal melody, but Dickinson, in classic form on this album, pulls it off with aplomb and verve. Written by Dickinson and Adrian Smith, “Back In The Village” is the most underrated Iron Maiden song of all time, a searing sequel to 1982’s “The Prisoner” that revisits the great Patrick McGoohan TV series and boasts a very nimble lead riff by Smith.

However, the four songs that comprise the core of Powerslave are something special. “Aces High” is the definitive Maiden album (and concert) opener, Harris’s explosive, thrilling depiction of the Battle of Britain from a fighter pilot’s perspective delivered at breakneck speed, peppered with brilliantly timed divebombs, featuring the best guitar interplay between Smith and Dave Murray on record, and dominated by Dickinson’s towering presence. One of the most eloquent anti-war songs in metal history, “2 Minutes To Midnight” is driven by Smith’s phenomenal, uncharacteristically groovy riff and made even more memorable by Dickinson’s lyrics that reference the Doomsday Clock and drip with cynicism. The title track, meanwhile, is arguably Dickinson’s finest solo composition, a multifaceted excursion in Egyptology, rife with vivid imagery (“Green is the cat’s eye that glows in this Temple/ Enter the risen Osiris — risen again”) and performed with theatrical flamboyance by him and the band.

Harris’s nearly 14-minute suite “Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” remains a perfect encapsulation of Iron Maiden’s blend of power and storytelling, a prime embodiment of the genre’s escapist appeal. A Cliff’s Notes retelling of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem, “Rime” succeeds in every way that Piece Of Mind’s “To Tame A Land” misfired. Musically, and most importantly, lyrically restrained, Harris finds a balance between economy and bombast in a way he’d equal only sporadically for the rest of his career. His lyrics are simple, yet tell the story of the old seaman and that darn albatross vividly, giving Dickinson more than enough room to sell those lines with the flair of a stage actor. And when the opportunity arises to directly quote the poem (“Water, water everywhere and all the boards did shrink/ Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink”), it’s a perfect fit. The dynamics of the track are masterful, shifting from the straightforward verses to an audacious extended middle section, which then segues into a chilling re-re-entry by Dickinson (“The curse it lives on in their eyes”) and a towering crescendo that explodes into an glorious dual solo break by Murray and Smith. 1994’s “Sign Of The Cross” would come close to matching that grandeur, but “Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” remains the band’s one great epic, the song that turned a generation of metalheads into unwitting Humanities students.

The band’s subsequent World Slavery Tour would soon become the stuff of legend. 11 months, 187 concerts played, including triumphant performances in Eastern Bloc countries such as Poland and Yugoslavia in 1984, and in Rio de Janeiro in 1985, both of which would play a monumental role in broadening the global appeal of heavy metal (Brazilian metal innovators Sepultura were hugely influenced by the Rio performance). Maiden’s popularity skyrocketed, as they became one of the biggest moneymakers in the genre. However, now trapped in a perpetual write-record-tour cycle, the song “Powerslave” would take on a new meaning, the band finding themselves slaves to the power of commerce, art, media, and the expectations of their audience.