Initially released in 1994, Balls to Picasso was Bruce Dickinson’s first solo album as a former member of Iron Maiden. Bruce handed in his resignation, and two years later released his masterpiece, Balls to Picasso.
Over the years, Balls to Picasso would be a cult classic in the metal world, yielding some of Bruce’s best writing, such as “Laughing in the Hiding Bush,” “Gods of War,” and the epic “Tears of the Dragon.” I felt like I could relate to Bruce on a personal and emotional level. He had just left Iron Maiden, and I had just left my metal band. I was looking to do something completely different and challenge myself, and Bruce was doing the same thing. I felt defeated, depressed, and lost, but in Balls to Picasso, I heard optimism.
I listened to a man who faced the fear of being on his own for the first time by creating music that was pulled from the pit of his soul. Hearing Balls to Picasso put a lot of things in perspective for me, and it quickly became a favorite of mine and a companion of sorts as I navigated through a new chapter in my life.
In 2025, Bruce announced that he had plans to release a “re-imagining” of an album called More Balls to Picasso. Whoa, boy. Bruce, you were about to tread upon sacred ground. I rolled my eyes, bit my lip, and asked the gods of all things sacred, “WHY??? WHY???” How and why would anyone mess with this masterpiece of an album? I had two choices: to accept it and hate it, or to accept it and love it.
So, how does the 2025 More Balls to Picasso measure up? More Balls to Picasso didn’t change anything about the track listing except for the addition of the song, so I felt comfortable that I wasn’t going to be caught off guard or jarred by a change. I opened my mind, let it play, and goddamn. Right out of the gates, the “re-imagining” of this album was loud, proud, and welcomed with open arms.
Gone was the muddy and over-compressed sounding production. The new mix sounded much livelier and brighter, but not thin. Roy Z’s guitars have received a much-deserved fattening of the tone, and bassist Eddie Casillas’ brilliant playing has been brought to the forefront more than the original mix. This made me so happy to hear because the rhythm section of him and David Ingraham was so tight and impressively complex, but it was lost in the mix. Again, that thick, muddy sound didn’t do much for the sound of these songs, but with this mix, Bruce’s voice sounds like a hot knife cutting butter.
More Balls to Picasso has the songs standing out so much more than before. In addition to the stellar re-mixing of this album, the new additions to the songs I found to be entirely and over the top amazing. The tribal drums on “Gods of War” captured the spirit of the music and the lyrics that Bruce was delivering. This addition made the song hit so much harder than before. The addition of keyboards on “1,000 Points of Light” gave it a change of atmosphere and took it to an almost cosmic realm. The addition of a horn section to “Shoot All the Clowns” was so brilliantly over the top. The song is already so over the top and ridiculously awesome, but the horns took that to another level of ridiculous winning.
All the mentioned additions were fantastic, but it was the addition of strings to “Change of Heart” and “Tears of the Dragon” that was most notable. “Change of Heart” felt much more heartbreaking and darker in an emotionally sinister way. With the newly added strings, “Tears of the Dragon” sounded like the epic that it was meant to be. I love the original, but the strings made this song sound ten times bigger than it was before, and it was a much-deserved treatment that was a long time coming.
Change is scary. I generally hate change because I like structure and a routine. I appreciate knowing that when I listen to an album, I’ll hear it consistently the way I did decades ago. Balls to Picasso holds an even bigger piece of my heart than before, and I can guarantee that this will be the version that I will be spinning for a long, long time to come. More Balls to Picasso is a reminder that sometimes change can be for the best. In this case, this change took the album to a whole new level, and one where I always felt it should’ve been. If it was close the last time, More Balls to Picasso completed the climb and sits on top where it rightfully belongs.
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