Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson and Napalm Death bassist Shane Embury have contributed music to a new documentary about space.
Seas Of The Sun: The Story Of The Cluster Mission is a 46-minute film about a space mission by the European Space Agency (ESA), which lasted for 24 years as the organisation surveyed and studied space plasma, a super-heated gas produced by stars.
It was produced by Space Rocks Foundation founder and former Metal Hammer editor Alexander Milas, and co-directed by Milas and Ryan Mackfall. Watch the full documentary below.
Seas Of The Sun is named after Navigate The Seas Of The Sun, a song from Dickinson’s 2005 solo album Tyranny Of Souls. The song features in the film, as does a recording by Embury, who made new music in collaboration with Danish artist Klaus Nielsen. The pair used a process called data sonification, which transforms data into sound, for their contribution to the soundtrack.
As well as music from Dickinson and Embury, Seas Of The Sun has an original score composed by Icelandic composer Karlotta Skagfield. It also features contributions from cellist Jo Quail, who’s performed with the likes of Mono, Myrkur and My Dying Bride.
Milas comments: “It was amazing to work closely with Shane and this great assembled team of artists and filmmakers to help bring the Cluster mission to life. Cluster has helped to unravel startling mysteries about the universe, but we wanted to celebrate the ingenuity and incredible tenacity of the people behind it, too. I really believe that space exploration has important lessons for us all, and that’s what Space Rocks is all about.”
The new project continues heavy metal’s relationship with space, a subject which was recently explored in a Hammer piece called, “Why is heavy metal so obsessed with space all of a sudden?” It claimed that the likes of Blood Incantation, Slift, Psychonaut and Dvne were leading a new wave of extreme metal fascinated with cosmic themes. Milas, along with Dvne guitarist/vocalist Victor Vicart, was interviewed for the article.
“It’s an incredible and wonderful thing to see bands latching on to this kind of subject matter,” Milas told us. “And I should say, it’s not just metal. Steven Wilson did an entire record called The Overview [earlier this year]: a two-track, 42-minute record about the scale of the universe. I think that artists as a whole are waking up to the kind of creative possibilities that space can represent, because it is ceaselessly fascinating.”
Dickinson leads a solo career in tandem with his work as the singer of Maiden, and he hopes to record his eighth solo album in early 2026. He will then return to the road with Maiden, when the band’s 50th-anniversary Run For Your Lives tour picks up for its second leg in May.
Meanwhile, Napalm Death are booked to perform at the Apocalypse Metal Fest in Le Havre, France on Saturday (November 22). The band will tour South America from November to December and have more European dates scheduled for early 2026.
