Style: Traditional heavy metal with a meaty bottom end
Primary Emotions/Themes: Auditory representations of the writings of William Blake
Thoughts:
"And so we lay, We lay in the same grave, Our chemical wedding day"
"In the atom circle, Where we break the stars, Hammer into anvil, Snuffing out the sun"
"Bring me my bow of burning gold, Bring me my arrows of desire, I shall not sleep till the clouds unfold, Bring me my chariot of fire"
Borrowing lyrics from one of the greatest poets in the last few hundred years may be considered cheating by some. I would too if a lesser vocalist was singing, but Bruce does this stuff more justice than just about anyone else on the planet could.
What Bruce and company have accomplished on this hour of music is nothing short of incredible. Each one of the ten tracks showcases Bruce's voice brilliantly. It shows the majesty of Roy and Adrian's dueling guitars. The rhythm section supports the melodies of the vocals and guitars in ways that few can - they do so much with so little.
Let me try and dissect the individual elements of this album and how they come together to form one of the greatest traditional metal albums in my collection. First off the drums: not a single instance of double bass is used here, yet the album never feels lacking. The interplay between the bass drum and snare is particularly memorable as Dave weaves his rhythmic tapestry. From the very first moments of King in Crimson we are graced with his art. He never plays too softly, never to harshly - everything is played exactly as it needs to be.
The bass is also played to near perfection. It fills out the meaty bottom end of the album in a way that only the finest bass players can. Mind you this is not an Iron Maiden type of bass execution by any means, this is a more traditional delivery where it is meant to compliment the guitars rather than stand out on it's own power. That said, this is one of the finest executions of that style that I can think of in my collection.
This leads us to the dual guitars. First off, the guitar tone used here is wicked. It's thick and chunky like a good home made chili. Going back to those first moments of the King in Crimson, right after the snare shots the initial riff comes in and almost always I'm making a stank face at how nasty and hefty the riff is. And that's just the start of the album
The record is an absolute clinic in riffs. Most of the songs fall below the five minute mark and follow the verse/chorus formula. Normally that would be a detractor for me, but it works exceptionally well for the music contained within Chemical Wedding. These songs were written to be rockers and the song writers knew exactly what was going on when they penned these songs.
There are a few deviations though. The powerful tour de force of Book of Thel showcases both Adrian and Roy's ability to solo and create riff after amazing riff. Seriously this song never ends and continues to grow in potency over the course of its eight minutes.
Jerusalem incorporates a beautiful acoustic pairing to Bruce's powerful voice. It's likely my favorite song on the album because of how dynamic it is. Starting off slow and almost venerable sounding the song grows in potency both musically and vocally until we hear Bruce almost yell "Tears of blood fall out of the sky!" It's incredibly powerful, and gives me the shivers to this day.
Chemical Wedding is one of those incredibly rare albums that never lets up and never disappoints. There is not a single bad riff, line, verse, chorus, solo... anything on this album. It is nearly perfect. Given my normal aversion to traditional metal, and I'm considering this a near perfect album should reflect the quality of the music contained within. One word: masterpiece.
Written March 22nd and March 25th 2024
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