Track Listing

1. King in Crimson
2. Chemical Wedding
3. Tower
4. Killing Floor
5. Book of Thel
6. Gates of Urizen
7. Jerusalem
8. Trumpets of Jericho
9. Machine Men
10. Alchemist
11. Return of the King [*]
12. Real World [*]
13. Confeos [*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67583 in Music
• Released on: 2005-06-21
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .26 pounds

Customer Reviews

Some of Bruce's best work anywhere
Despite the fact that I'd been a serious Maiden fan for a couple years now, I only recently got around to getting some of Bruce's solo work. It took quite a few listens for me to fully appreciate this album, but I think this is the best of his last 3 solo albums, and it stands up pretty well to the best IM albums. (It's not as good, I don't think, but it gets pretty damn close.) Though the sound is somewhat modernized, it's still decidedly Maiden-ish, making it a fairly fresh and extremely well executed twist on the classic metal sound. Certainly, all Maiden fans need to get this album.

The most surprising thing about this album is the guitar tone. It is *severely* down tuned, sounds like all the way down to A, to me. Now, I'm opposed to down tuning in general, but this seems like a fairly odd thing to do for a classic/power metal album. And maybe it would work better with a higher tuning, as it is pretty odd sounding at first with the rumblingly modern, bass-heavy guitar attack. But, after you get used to it it works fine, and provides an added darkness and intensity to the sound.

Of the 10 tracks, there a 2 decidedly weaker ones: 'Killing Floor' and 'Gates of Urizen'. The former is a rocker hurt by its rather grating chorus, while the latter is a somewhat balladish, atmospheric piece that fails to really intrigue me all that much. As usual, neither of these tracks are *bad* precisely, but they don't add too much. Everything else is excellent, however. It opens with 'King in Crimson' a fine counterpart to any classic IM opening tracks, with a severely in your face chorus and a fierce vocal performance from Bruce. (Who is brilliant throughout the album, as usual) The title tracks is a ballad, which nicely utilizes the low tuning to create a brooding, dark sound, and has a great, soaring chorus. (The kinda thing you expect from Bruce) 'The Tower' is a more overtly IM-esque piece, a bit faster and less dark than the prior tracks, and a nice running bass/dual lead middle break. Not the best thing here, but a very solid album track. 'Book of Thel' is excellent, a long, epic track, but with perhaps the best, most energetic chorus yet heard on the album. 'Jerusalem' is a fine ballad. Personally, I actually like to hear a metal ballad every now and then that doesn't bow to the metallic nature of the band, and eventually transform into a regular metal song. Certainly, this track has some distorted guitarwork, but it never loses the focus on the lyrical vocal melodies. 'Trumpets of Jericho' is probably my favorite track. It's just another semi-epic rocker, executed perfectly with another stunning, soaring chorus, and plenty of thundering riffs. 'Machine Men' is another straight ahead rocker. Again, nothing you haven't heard before, but with the powerful chorus that makes it totally worthwhile. 'The Alchemist' slows things down a bit, as it's an atmosphere-laden, semi-ballad, with Bruce's most affecting vocal performance on the album. It also contains a little reprise of the 'Chemical Wedding' chorus, which concludes the album nicely.

Yeah, I'm done. Any fan of traditional heavy metal has to have this.

Once again, Bruce Delivers!
Wow! If there was ever an award for the best under-the-radar Metal album, Bruce's The Chemical Wedding would be a serious contender for such a prize.

The Chemical Wedding is a straight-forward Metal album, but it does have a little bit of a Nu-metal element because of the obvious down tuning of the guitars, especially in the rhythm section. Nontheless, its still a great album.

King in Crimson kicks off the album with it's heavy riffs and Bruce's siren vocals, then Roy Z and Adrian Smith come in and give us a very Maiden-esque pair of solos. The pace is then slowed down for the title track. The Chemical Wedding is a nice mid-tempo tune with a very catchy chorus and some good guitar licks. Then comes The Tower, which opens with a neat rhythm part with only the bass and drums, but then the twin guitars kick in leading up to the very catchy chorus. The Tower is one of my favorite tracks from the album. Then the album hits a bump with Killing Floor, which isn't necesarily a bad track, but it just doesn't do much for me largely in part because of it's chorus. However, the Book of Thel comes next and more than compensates for the Killing Floor. The song starts out with a nice keyboard section with a nice little guitar lead, but then a vicious riff kicks in and off we go. Book of Thel is easily the best track in the album. Then comes Gates of Urizen, which isn't a standout track, but it's still an enjoyable ballad-ish tune with some very good vocals from Bruce and some nice guitar solos. Then comes Jerusalem, which opens up with a nice acoustic introduction, but then builds up to a nice rocker with quite possibly the best guitar solos in the album. Jerusalem also showcases Bruce's great vocal range, as he starts out the song on a rather low note, but then shifts up a gear the second time around the chorus. So after two ballad-ish songs, a fast and heavy tune is thrown in: Trumpets of Jericho, which is a very rhythm-heavy song with a memorable chorus. Then comes Machine Men, which has a riff-driven intro that sounds very Maiden-esque (and actually reminds me a bit of the riff in Flash of the Blade from Maiden's Powerslave). Anyhow, Machine Men is a good track that is followed by The Alchemist, which is one of the highlights of the album. The Alchemist has a bit of a spooky intro and the song is transformed into a mid-rocker with one of the best choruses in the album. The Alchemist's ending is also instilled with the chorus from The Chemical Wedding, which ties the album together very neatly. Then come the bonus tracks which have some good material. I especially like Return of the King, which has a nice uplifting mood and a nice happy-chorus that reminds me a little of the chorus on Rainmaker from Maiden's Dance of Death.

To sum it up; The Chemical Wedding is a great album that I highly recommend for any fan of metal, or just good music in general. If you're a Maiden fan, you definetaly need this in your collection. If you haven't done so yet, purchase this album!

The jaw dropping masterpiece of Bruce Dickinson's solo career thus far.
After leaving Iron Maiden after their 1993 tour for their terrible 1992 album "Fear of the Dark" (which came after 1990's equally bad "No Prayer for the Dying"), vocalist Bruce Dickinson would release a couple of really good solo CD's entitled "Balls to Picasso" and "Skunkworks" which were met with mixed reviews.

Most people/critics scoffed at the fact that Bruce was actually trying to do something different than just straight ahead metal and more in the realm of what was going on in the early 90's music wise with the gruge explosion of Seattle.

But on his next CD "Accident of Birth", this release would see Bruce returning to the world of metal music and it was met with much acclaim by people as a return to form for Bruce.

His last solo CD in 1998 before returning to Iron Maiden in 1999 was "The Chemical Wedding" and like the new liner notes in this remastered & expanded edition of this fantastic CD states, nobody was expecting this album to be as awe inspiring as it turned out to be.

Basically, this album is what Maiden should have been doing throughout most of the 90's instead of the dreck that they would release near the end of Bruce's tenure as singer and throughout their terrible 2 albums with Blaze Bailey before thankfully getting Bruce back behind the mic.

Over the years, all of Bruce's 90's solo stuff had gone out of prints and Sanctuary records has seen fit to remaster, release and expand all 4 of his 90's solo offerings so that people who haven't heard or were aware of his solo stuff can now see what Bruce was up to while he was out of Maiden.

The Chemical Wedding has a bit of a slower feel than Accident of Birth but that slower feel benefits the album's darker and more foreboding feel. Not to say that there are some awesome up tempo tracks on here (like the awesome track Tower), but this is a more brooding album and it benefits from that approach immensely.

Producer/guitarist Roy Z. and ex-Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith even strung their guitars with bass strings on a few tracks to give the songs an even deeper feel.

From start to finish, this album is majestic and a wonder to behold for fans of classic metal or just great music in general. Bruce's voice is awesome as usual and his band on this CD (which was the same lineup he had on Accident of Birth) is smoking throughout.

Maybe it was the high quality of this album which caused the troubled Iron Maiden to come crawling back to Bruce.

This expanded edition really doesn't sound all that different despite being "remastered", but the original release sounded great to begin with.

The real reason why this particular re-release is warranted is due to the inclusion of 3 bonus tracks in the fantastic "Return of the King" (which was only found on the Japanese release of The Chemical Wedding). The other 2 tracks (Real World & Confeos) are from the CD single for The Killing Floor. "Real World" has some great music despite a bit of a repetitive chorus and "Confeos" is sort of a joke (but cool) track in which the boys are clearly having their tongue stuck in their cheek.

Along with the other 3 reissues, the new liner notes are excellent and they also designate who did what guitar solo where.

I've always thought that all of Bruce's solo material was great stuff and in some ways better than what Maiden has been doing for quite some time.

It's a great thing that these 4 out of print CD's have been given a new lease on life for people to discover without having to pay hefty prices getting the original Cd's off of Ebay.

Any fan of metal or just great music in general would do wise to pick this up as it's easily (so far) his crowning achievment of his 6 solo Cd's so far.