Bruce Dickinson shares video for Rain On The Graves, the second single from his forthcoming solo album The Mandrake Project

Bruce Dickinson has shared a 'musical horror short' for Rain On The Graves, single two from his forthcoming solo album The Mandrake Project.

Introduced by a quotation from William Blake's poem Auguries of Innocence, first published in 1863, the atmospheric and entertaining video, directed by Ryan Mackfall, who also shot the video accompanying Afterglow Of Ragnarok, the album's lead-off single, features Dickinson himself as The Preacher, a rather fearful and anxious man of god fleeing across the countryside and entering a graveyard where he's confronted by a sinister and possibly unhinged demonic-looking individual with what appears to be sawn-off horns. Hmmm...

The song will be available on streaming services later today, January 25.

Watch the video below:

The Mandrake Project is Dickinson's follow-up to his 2005 album Tyranny of Souls and features songs two decades in the making.

Iron Maiden's polymath frontman spoke recently to Brazilian culture website Omelete about the concept behind the much-anticipated album, and the 12-issue graphic novel which adds further colour to the narrative, which is described as “a dark, adult story of power, abuse and a struggle for identity, set against the backdrop of scientific and occult genius”.

"So The Mandrake Project, one, is an album," Dickinson stated [as transcribed by Blabbermouth] "It's the name of the album. The comic is a 12-episode graphic novel, kind of adult. There's lots of stuff in it — there's lots of sex and drugs and violence and all kinds of stuff. But it's basically a story about a guy who is looking for his identity, Dr. Necropolis. He's an orphan, he's a genius, and he hates it, and he hates life, but he's involved in The Mandrake Project. And The Mandrake Project aims to take the human soul at the point of death, capture it, store it and put it back in something else. And the guy that's running the project, Professor Lazarus, he has one vision of what's gonna happen with this technology, and Necropolis has other ideas. And on we go with the story."

The Mandrake Project, the album, will be released on March 1 via BMG.