The Chemical Wedding (Bruce Dickinson album)
The Chemical Wedding is the fifth solo album by English heavy metal singer Bruce Dickinson, released on 15 September 1998 through Dickinson's own label Air Raid Records. The record draws some inspiration from the works of William Blake, featuring sung and spoken excerpts of his prophetic works and poetry (notably "And did those feet in ancient time" on the track "Jerusalem"), and with cover art from his painting The Ghost of a Flea, although the name of the album and its title track derive from the Rosicrucian manifesto the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. As with the previous album, it featured Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith, then a member of Dickinson's solo outfit.
The Chemical Wedding | ||||
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The cover art is a reproduction of The Ghost of a Flea by William Blake | ||||
Studio album by | ||||
Released | 15 September 1998 | |||
Recorded | January–June 1998 | |||
Studio | Sound City and Silver Cloud, Los Angeles, California, USA | |||
Genre | Heavy metal | |||
Length | 57:32 | |||
Label | Air Raid (UK) CMC International (US) Victor (Japan) | |||
Producer | Roy Z | |||
Bruce Dickinson chronology | ||||
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Singles from The Chemical Wedding | ||||
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The film, Chemical Wedding, with a screenplay by Dickinson, was released in May 2008. It features the title track from the album on its soundtrack, but concerns a story about the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley and is otherwise unrelated.
Lyrical themes
Dickinson: "Each song has a sort of frame in which it operates. The first song is about fear, the second song is about tragedy, the third song is about union. You could pick a theme or a topic for each song so that's what the song is about and then you put it in a frame. For example, one of the songs is about failure and the song is called "The Trumpets of Jericho". In the story of the trumpets of Jericho in the Bible, the walls fall down when the tribes of Israel walk around the city and blow their trumpets. Except in this song they don't, it doesn't work. You've done everything right, everything's cool but the wall's still standing. And what do you do? How do you face up to that fact? And it's all part of the whole alchemy thing. What were the alchemists trying to do? They were trying to achieve something that was virtually impossible, they spent their whole lives trying to do it, and all of them failed, or pretty damn near all of them failed. So, what does that feel like, and how does that work, and why keep carrying on. So that's the way the songs kind of work. And you don't have to go into them in all this detail, you could just sit back there and let it hit you over the head like a sledgehammer cause the album works it's just a really heavy album. But it's all there if you want to dig through the words."[1]
A guest reviewer of the webzine Metal Storm wrote that "the lyrics sound as if they were copied right away out of the unholy scriptures, capture the most of the time very empty feeling, warm and comforting sounds you can only expect from the 'Chemical Wedding' and 'The Alchemist' songs."[2]
Additional recordings
According to an interview with Rock Brigade in October 1998, Bruce mentioned that the band recorded a cover of the Scorpions song, "The Zoo". Although never released as a b-side or bonus track, it did see release that same year on the compilation ECW: Extreme Music.
Reception
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [3] |
Chronicles of Chaos | 9.5/10[4] |
Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal | 9/10[5] |
Rock Hard | 9/10[6] |
Sputnikmusic | 4.5/5[7] |
Critical response to The Chemical Wedding was generally favourable, with Allmusic praising its "modern metal aesthetic".[3] Sputnikmusic said, "Professionally written and recorded, Bruce Dickinson once again pours his soul into his music, and the result is spectacular", and went on to deem it "one of the best metal albums of the late 90s".[7] In 2005, The Chemical Wedding was ranked number 388 in Rock Hard magazine's book of The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.[8]
Track listing
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "King in Crimson" | Bruce Dickinson, Roy Z | 4:43 |
2. | "Chemical Wedding" | Dickinson, Z | 4:06 |
3. | "The Tower" | Dickinson, Z | 4:45 |
4. | "Killing Floor" | Dickinson, Adrian Smith | 4:29 |
5. | "Book of Thel" | Dickinson, Z, Eddie Casillas | 8:13 |
6. | "Gates of Urizen" | Dickinson, Z | 4:25 |
7. | "Jerusalem" | Dickinson, Z, William Blake | 6:42 |
8. | "Trumpets of Jericho" | Dickinson, Z | 5:59 |
9. | "Machine Men" | Dickinson, Smith | 5:41 |
10. | "The Alchemist" (includes reprise of "Chemical Wedding") | Dickinson, Z | 8:27 |
Original pressings also include an untitled hidden track after 2 minutes of silence. It is a brief spoken piece that says: "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".
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
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11. | "Return of the King" | Dickinson, Smith | 5:06 |
12. | "Real World" | Dickinson, Z | 3:59 |
13. | "Confeos" (includes the untitled hidden track found at the end of "The Alchemist" on earlier editions.) | Dickinson, Z | 7:35 |
Personnel
- Band members
- Bruce Dickinson – lead vocals
- Adrian Smith – guitars, keyboards
- Roy Z – guitars, keyboards, producer, engineer, mixing
- Eddie Casillas – bass guitar
- David Ingraham – drums, percussion
- Guest musicians
- Arthur Brown – voice on tracks 5, 7, 13
- Greg Schultz – keyboards
- Frazeeke MC, The Guru, Willy 666, Craig Lichtenstein – background vocals on track 4
- Production
- Stan Katayama – engineer, mixing at Brooklyn Studios, Los Angeles
- Joe Floyd – engineer
- Richard "The Guru" Carette, Sam Storey, Thom Banghardt – assistant engineers
- Dave Collins – mastering at A&M Mastering Studios, Los Angeles
Chart positions
Country | Chart (1998) | Position |
---|---|---|
Finland | Finnish Albums Chart | 22[9] |
Germany | Media Control Charts | 41[10] |
Japan | Oricon | 64[11] |
Sweden | Sverigetopplistan | 31[12] |
United Kingdom | UK Albums Chart | 55[13] |
References
- Azkath, Seriah (19 August 1998). "The following interview with Bruce Dickinson was conducted on August 19, 1998 by Seriah Azkath…". Tripod. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
- "Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding". Metal Storm. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
- Rivadavia, Eduardo. "Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding review". AllMusic. All Media Network. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
- Bromley, Adrian (1 October 1998). "Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding". Chronicles of Chaos. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
- Popoff, Martin (1 August 2007). The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 3: The Nineties. Burlington, Ontario, Canada: Collector's Guide Publishing. p. 118. ISBN 978-1-894959-62-9.
- Kühnemund, Götz (30 September 1998). "Review Album des monats: Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding". Rock Hard (in German). No. 137. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
- Stagno, Mike. "Bruce Dickinson The Chemical Wedding". Sputnikmusic. Retrieved 6 April 2009.
- [...], Rock Hard (Hrsg.). [Red.: Michael Rensen. Mitarb.: Götz Kühnemund] (2005). Best of Rock & Metal die 500 stärksten Scheiben aller Zeiten. Königswinter: Heel. p. 54. ISBN 3-89880-517-4.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
- "Diskografia Bruce Dickinson" (in Finnish). Finnish charts. Retrieved 6 July 2008.
- "Chartverfolgung – Bruce Dickinson" (in German). Musicline.de. Retrieved 6 July 2008.
- "ブルース・ディッキンソン-Oricon Style ミュージック" (in Japanese). oricon.co.jp. Retrieved 9 July 2008.
- "Diskografi Bruce Dickinson" (in Swedish). Swedish charts. Retrieved 8 July 2008.
- "The Official Charts Company – Bruce Dickinson". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 19 November 2008.
External links
- The Chemical Wedding at Discogs
- The Chemical Wedding at Last.fm
- The Chemical Wedding at MusicBrainz (list of releases)