Bruce Dickinson is locked in an Iron Maiden. And he likes it that way.

After a seven-year break from Britain's foremost heavy metalers, the singer is back for the band's current tour, which brings them to Massey Hall Tuesday.

The newly restored lineup -- which also marks the return of guitarist Adrian Smith -- plans to record a new album in the fall. Meanwhile, Iron Maiden are pushing their ambitious recent release, Ed Hunter, which features a CD-ROM video game and a fan-voted, best-of compilation.

According to Dickinson, it's not a reunion so much as a labour of love.

"I've always said that under the right circumstances, I would be interested in getting back with Maiden," the Sheffield-born vocalist says recently over the phone.

"There's an awful lot that Maiden has left to do."

Though he's not the group's original frontman -- he replaced founding singer Paul Di'anno in 1981 -- Dickinson represents for many fans the glory days of Iron Maiden. The group managed a string of mega-selling albums in the '80s, taking the speedy riffs and fantastical, comic book imagery of "new wave metal" to a mass audience.

Dickinson lit out on his own for a relatively successful solo career in 1992, and was replaced by singer Blaze Bailey. Still, he shared a manager with Maiden and kept in touch with the band.

"My solo career was actually on a huge up-swing over the past couple of records," he says. "But the opportunity to rejoin Maiden came in January when it became obvious that Blaze was going to leave.

"I guess my only concern was that everyone in the band would be committed to doing a new record -- keeping all the best bits of Maiden, but also updating a few of the things, a few of the perceptions."

He explains:"There are subtle things about a band that you can change. It happened on (1982's) Number Of The Beast, the one album people seem to have in their record collections whether or not they have any other Iron Maiden records. I think that me rejoining the band makes for a huge opportunity to do a record like that."

Dickinson says his band has "engaged the services of an interesting producer" for the forthcoming album, though he won't name names yet. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you," he laughs.

"We just want to make an interesting record. The metal scene has been in such a divided state over the last few years, and we've always had sort of a free run. We'd like to bring some excitement back to it."

Dickinson is flattered by his reputation as Iron Maiden's definitive voice, but downplays his past in the band.

"I still have to earn that reputation every time we go out there," he says.

"But we're a band that enjoys it. We don't have any manic depressives or major substance abusers. We still get out there, get on with it, and to a large extent, we have a rather unfashionable blue collar ethic about what we do.

"We're proud of it."