Monday, October 10, 2011

The Chemical Wedding

I am going to continue my reviews of early Metal records, but I need to give some more earplay to my next review.  As such I will talk about one of my favorite metal records, Bruce Dickinson's Chemical Wedding.

I love this record.  I feel it may be better than any of Bruce's work with Iron Maiden.  I have reservations saying it is the best metal record of the 90's.  Big claims for sure.   Some will say what of Pantera, but I feel their work has been a detriment to the metal genre as a whole.  Their influence introduced the metal groove which seems to have completely dominated nu metal.  I have always loved the dark melodic approach of metal, so I do see it as something to be mourned.

As for the record itself, you can not do better. Adrian Smith returns to his metallic roots joining Roy Z and Bruce for one hell of a record.  I got this record soon after it was released, metal was very underground at that time and you really had to track down new material.  Youtube has been a real help finding new bands, but back then the record stores were not doing a good job. So finding something solid on the metal front was a real treat.

When I popped in the CD I was really happy with the first few tracks they were metal, they were Bruce, they were almost maiden.  It's the third track "the tower" that really got me, I was thinking this is good, it really needs a twin guitar bit thought, and poof it delivered. Killing floor hit me with how hard they were going, I was surprised but happy.  By  The book of thel I was just totally happy.  I got home and told my wife how awesome the record is.

The rest of the record is great, Jerusalem is a classic I wish they added to the Maiden live line up.  The only low points are the quasi record scratching sound in Machine men, I just don't like it.  But also there is an extra song called return of the king that rules.  I wish that was on the record so I didn't have to look elsewhere.

If you don't have this you must buy it.  You have wronged yourself too long.

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