The Chemical Wedding
The cover art is a reproduction of The Ghost of a Flea by William Blake
Studio album by
Bruce Dickinson
Released15 September 1998
RecordedJanuary–June 1998
StudioSound City and Silver Cloud, Los Angeles
GenreHeavy metal
Length57:32
LabelAir Raid (UK)
CMC International (US)
Victor (Japan)
ProducerRoy Z
Bruce Dickinson chronology
Accident of Birth
(1997)		 The Chemical Wedding
(1998)		 Scream for Me Brazil
(1999)
Singles from The Chemical Wedding
  1. "Killing Floor"
    Released: 1998

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. This is the last Dickinson's album before he (and also Adrian Smith) rejoined Iron Maiden the following year.

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]

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

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Chronicles of Chaos9.5/10[3]
Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal9/10[4]
Rock Hard9/10[5]
Sputnikmusic4.5/5[6]

Critical response to The Chemical Wedding was generally favourable, with AllMusic praising its "modern metal aesthetic".[2] 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".[6] In 2005, The Chemical Wedding was ranked number 388 in Rock Hard magazine's book The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.[7] In his review, Canadian journalist Martin Popoff praised Dickinson for finding "creative wells that seems limitless, and groovy and literary all at once" and for having recorded an album "of phat, traditional, somber and aged heavy metal that sounds like bloody, beefy Piece of Mind-era Maiden crossed with Subhuman Race-era Skid Row."[4]

Track listing

Original track listing
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."King in Crimson"Bruce Dickinson, Roy Z4:43
2."Chemical Wedding"Dickinson, Z4:06
3."The Tower"Dickinson, Z4:45
4."Killing Floor"Dickinson, Adrian Smith4:29
5."Book of Thel"Dickinson, Z, Eddie Casillas8:13
6."Gates of Urizen"Dickinson, Z4:25
7."Jerusalem"Dickinson, Z, William Blake6:42
8."Trumpets of Jericho"Dickinson, Z5:59
9."Machine Men"Dickinson, Smith5:41
10."The Alchemist" (6:00 in expanded edition, includes reprise of "Chemical Wedding")Dickinson, Z8:27

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".

Expanded Edition bonus tracks
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
11."Return of the King"Dickinson, Smith5:06
12."Real World"Dickinson, Z3:59
13."Confeos" (includes the untitled hidden track found at the end of "The Alchemist" on earlier editions.)Dickinson, Z7:35

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

Charts

Chart (1998) Peak
position
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)[8] 22
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[9] 41
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[10] 64
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[11] 31
UK Albums (OCC)[12] 55

References

  1. ↑ 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.
  2. 1 2 Rivadavia, Eduardo. "Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding review". AllMusic. All Media Network. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  3. ↑ Bromley, Adrian (1 October 1998). "Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding". Chronicles of Chaos. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  4. 1 2 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.
  5. ↑ Kühnemund, Götz (30 September 1998). "Review Album des monats: Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding". Rock Hard (in German). No. 137. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  6. 1 2 Stagno, Mike. "Bruce Dickinson The Chemical Wedding". Sputnikmusic. Retrieved 6 April 2009.
  7. ↑ Best of Rock & Metal - Die 500 stärksten Scheiben aller Zeiten (in German). Rock Hard. 2005. p. 54. ISBN 3-89880-517-4.
  8. ↑ "Bruce Dickinson: The Chemical Wedding" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  9. ↑ "Offiziellecharts.de – Bruce Dickinson – The Chemical Wedding" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  10. ↑ Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005 (in Japanese). Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. 2006. ISBN 4-87131-077-9.
  11. ↑ "Swedishcharts.com – Bruce Dickinson – The Chemical Wedding". Hung Medien. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  12. ↑ "Bruce Dickinson | Artist | Official Charts". UK Albums Chart. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
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