Review Summary: The darkest side of Bruce you could possibly imagine.
After 1997's successful
Accident of Birth, Bruce wasn't done yet. He had nowhere to go but forward with his sound, and the result is
The Chemical Wedding- boy, was he back with a vengeance.
Wedding explores a territory similar to his previous album, but darker, heavier, and bordering at times on doom metal and sludge metal. It's also his last album he made before he returned to Maiden, but not hislast album ever- seven years later he returned to do
Tyranny of Souls, but for the time, this sure was a great pre-TOS and pre-Maiden swan song.
While I recommend this album as a starting point, I must issue a warning that you WILL be taken aback by how different it sounds. The first tihiss heard it, I was floored by the doomy opening chords of
King in Crimson, which is arguably one of Bruce's heaviest tracks, and a kick-in-the-teeth of an opener, albeit in a different fashion than "Freak" on
Accident of Birth. Bruce's singing starts off as rougher than usual too, as he sings about death following those who encounter this king draped in crimson. He death-growls the last line of the song too, something you don't usually expect from the air raid siren. This alone should be proof that you're in for something completely uncharted, and serves as a warning to prepare for senses to be completely annihilated. Throughout the album's ten tracks, there's themes of alchemy, mystical sex, Satan working his chaos on the planet, the sounds of the Jericho trumpets, and even an old English folk song completely reworked. The sound is considerably darker than dark, blacker than black, crushing, at times even depressing and unnerving. If you thought you'd never see Bruce taking on something heavier than you'd get in Maiden, think again.
Every single track on the album is completely flawless. The best advice with regards to
The Chemical Wedding is to listen to it at night, in the dark, maybe even with a few candles for a spooky ambiance. The aforementioned "King in Crimson" starts the album on a great note, and segues nicely into the eponymous track, a heavy, crushing and emotionally draining metal tune about Aleister Crowley's scientific beliefs. Bruce's voice on the chorus is ever-so-beautiful, with the soaring sounds of "
And so we lay, we lay in the same grave, our chemical wedding day..." remaining in your brain long after the album is over. Songs like "Killing Floor" and "Trumpets of Jericho" are heavy, rocking and crushing, with the former being absolutely terrifying. Bruce's screams of "
SA-TAN!!! HAS LEFT HIS KILLING FLOOR!!!" are nothing short of disturbing and add to the scary nature of the tune, and "Trumpets of Jericho" has a catchy tune, with a riff that wouldn't sound out of place in a System of a Down song. "Book of Thel" is like a heavier version of "Darkside of Aquarius", with a middle section that is simply mind-blowing and has some wicked harmonizing from Bruce. And those who say that Bruce could sing the phone book and it would sound profound, I will have you know that he does just that on "Machine Men". The faint, distinct voices you hear in the background throughout the song are Bruce reading the yellow pages aloud! Even aside from that, it's a catchy and kick-arse metal tune from the greatest heavy metal singer of all time.
But the biggest highlight is "Jerusalem". It's a reworking of the popular English hymn, sung in a completely different melody and has some truly gorgeous voice work. The song is mostly acoustic for the first half, but the second half is here the real fun begins. The solos from Adrian Smith and Roy Ramirez are nothing short of beautiful, and the alternate ending to the tune is tear-jerkingly emotional. This is Bruce at his finest. Though out the album, there are spoken word passages, including one hidden in a track that comes after a few minutes passed in the album's final track, "The Alchemist". These passages would normally be annoying, but they truly add to the dark, mystical atmosphere, and the actor doing the passages has one epic voice that helps the album come together in a big way.
In short,
The Chemical Wedding is a true masterpiece, and a rare case of an album I'd call art. It's one of the few albums I call flawless too, and Bruce's finest moment in his solo career couldn't have happened at a better time: he would rejoin Maiden with fellow guitarist Adrian Smith, and restore the band to its former glory. But as for Bruce's solo works, Bruce sure had a hell of a run on his own, and
The Chemical Wedding is a true testament to it. If you're new to Bruce's solo works, start with this.
"
And all this vegetable world appeared on my left foot, as a bright sandal, formed immortal of precious stones and gold. I stooped down, and bound it on to walk forward through eternity..."
