As the Palaces Burned: Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding

On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played Madison Square Garden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we've launched As the Palaces Burned, a weekly series published every Wednesday covers metal albums of note released between 1991 and 2000.



I’m going to be in a lot of trouble this week. I have selected Bruce Dickinson’s Chemical Wedding as my choice. Not Accident of Birth but Chemical Wedding.

I like AoB. It is fine. It has some great songs like “Darkside of Aquarius” and “Taking the Queen.” But like Halford’s Resurrection album it is a safety record. A lot of the riffs are derivative and he tried too hard to sound like Maiden (although it could be argued that he was making better Maiden records than Maiden were without him during this period).

But Chemical Wedding was a risky record and an even riskier proposition since he still hadn’t regained his audience yet. Even before you open the jewel case you are greeted by one of William Blake’s paintings, “the Flea.” In fact I bought this in 1998 as an impulse purchase because of the cover alone. The William Blake art and song titles alluding to his body of work (“Book of Thel,” “Gates of Urizen,” etc.) were enough to get me to spend $15 while hanging out at the Borders by SUNY Albany.

Most of this record sounds like an alternate universe version of Iron Maiden where Dickinson, not Steve Harris, calls the shots. No version of “The Trooper” here for the punters. This is Dickinson being handed the keys to the kingdom and letting all of his eccentricity flow. Starting off with “King in Crimson” the down-tuned guitar riff shows off a much darker side to Bruce Dickinson’s sound than we had previously heard. Songs like “The Tower” are “Revelations” on steroids. The lyrics are cryptic blends of bible stories, the writings of Blake, vague allusions to Alastair Crowley, and generalized insanity.

From “Book of Thel”:
The burning sweat of poison tears/The river flowing red with blood
The cradle-robbing hand of death/Caresses every dreaming head

Waiting for the marriage hearse/To take you to the funeral pyre
So you burn the family tree /The generations burning higher

This is not “Run to the Hills” for sure. But the songs do have strong hooks and a lot of the great shout-along moments which make the Brazilians go nuts, as evidenced by the live record Scream for me Brazil.

Come for the exotic take on Maiden-esque Metal. Stay for the odd pseudo-mythology lessons. Revel in the amazing artwork licensed from the Blake estate. This album isn’t for everyone, but like Halford’s Crucible it shows the power and creativity Roy Z can conjure out of a classic artist trying to get back on their feet.

Live version of "Book of Thel":


Killing Floor:


King in Crimson:

As the Palaces Burned: Rob Halford - Resurrection

On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played Madison Square Garden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we present As the Palaces Burned, a weekly series published every Wednesday that covers notable metal albums released between 1991 and 2000.

Today's entry is Resurrection by Halford

As we previously covered, I was the only person upset when Rob Halford rejoined Judas Priest. I was happy seeing Priest in clubs kicking ass with Ripper, while Halford was an amazing and viable band in its own right. I would love to cover their misunderstood and highly underrated second album Crucible, but its 2002 release date falls outside the window of this series.

So we will look at Resurrection, the comeback record. I really like this album, and when I put it on again to write this I was pleasantly surprised at how well it holds up. It was a safety album. After leaving Judas Priest and releasing a the mediocre industrial goth album 2wo Rob Halford needed to re-establish himself in the hearts and minds of the Metal community. So what would you have done in 1999-2000? I would have done what Rob Halford did. Get together with Roy Z who re-energized Bruce Dickinson's career (this will be covered in great detail in a later entry), put together a heavy as balls band, and write a record that sounds as close to classic Judas Priest as humanly possible.

After years of hearing nothing from Rob Halford this song was leaked by the label.



Wonderful, right? I still get chills when I hear him scream "resurrection" at the very top of his vocal register. The rest of the album is a decent meat and potatoes hard rocking affair. My favorite song is the obviously "Electric Eye" influenced "Cyberworld" which has a wonderful chorus hook. "The One You Love to Hate" is a duet with Bruce Dickinson which truly exemplifies the "less is more" attitude of the album. There is no experimentation present anywhere. They saved that for album number two. This album's only purpose was to be a completely kick ass Metal record which would re-establish Rob Halford's career, and it worked.

It was official that the Metal God was back when he played as the first of three act at the sold out August 20th, 2000 Iron Maiden MSG show which we here at Baroque Bleak Brutal consider the spiritual rebirth of Metal. He was still a bit of an unknown quantity, and even at the ludicrously early 7PM set time the Garden was already packed. When his band started the opening notes of "The Hellion," the world's most famous arena got up on their feet and gave the man a standing ovation. I'm tearing up right now remembering the feeling of watching 15,000 Metal fans collectively have their own spiritual resurrection.

Cyberworld



The One You Love to Hate (with Bruce Dickinson)

As the Palaces Burned: Judas Priest - Jugulator

On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played Madison Square Garden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we're launching As the Palaces Burned, an occasional series that will cover metal albums of note released between 1991 and 2000.

Today's entry, Judas Priest's buried and forgotten classic, Jugulator.

Way before YouTube would make finding replacement band-members from tribute bands positively mainstream (hello Journey!) Judas Priest found their replacement in Tim "Ripper" Owens. At the time this got laughed at by the Metal community as "pathetic," but really, in 1997 there was not much Judas Priest could do that wouldn't have been mocked. At the height of Nu-Metal, Boy Bands and what was still called "Alternative" there was very little place for Judas Priest.

But they soldiered on, and made a true follow up to Painkiller. Still written by the core songwriting team of Glen Tipton and KK Downing, Jugulator is a sick album. It is heavier, faster and more explosive than anything Priest had ever done. The opening track "Jugulator" was not only a war cry for the band, but showcased that Ripper could absolutely hold his own on Halford's turf and in his upper tenor range. The songs varied wildly from the near grunge of "Blood Stained" and "Death Row" to the old school and epic closer "Cathedral Spires."

Ripper would end up getting his due in the Metal community much later for his work with Iced Earth and Yngwie, but "Jugulator" was an amazing work by a band inspired and at the height of their creative powers, even if no one was listening.

The Cure at Madison Square Garden

This show was one of "those shows;" an opportunity to see a band live that I'd wanted to see for years. I'd tried once, about ten years ago during the Bloodflowers tour, but never got anywhere because I couldn't find someone to go with me (something that would change as the years passed and I discovered that live music can be such a primal thing for me that I'm not bothered if there's no else around I know to share it with). This show was even a bit of an aberration than other examples of "that show" - Emperor, Metallica, Megadeth (the first time around) - because the ticket practically fell into my lap a couple of weeks before the show. Boy was I glad I went.

Back in high school and the beginning of college, I fancied myself a composer on the make. I wasn't dedicated enough - in part because I couldn't conceive of the level of dedication needed to be really good - to be an outstanding musician, but I had ideas about music and a fascination with technology that I figured would serve me well enough instead. I did some cool things, learned some stuff, and made some music that was different than what other people were doing around me, culminating in 10 minute piece in three or four movements, scored up for computer-based synthesizers, that I wrote when I was a high school senior. It was a pretty sweet accomplishment, and still makes me feel good when I think about it.

Here's why I bring it up: 65 Days of Static, the band that opened up for The Cure, sounded exactly like what I was going for with my music at its peak. Surprisingly (or maybe not, because I don't really have much of an ego about my creations), seeing someone do my thoughts better than I ever could made me really happy, like how a director must feel when watching actors bring their vision to life - if, you know, the director had absolutely no connection to any part of the movie they were watching. Good stuff; made me want to start writing music again.

Then The Cure came on and played over thirty songs in three hours, bringing me back to the exact same time period I'd so recently inhabited while enjoying 65 Days of Static's set, to the times when I wasn't trying to write music and was mowing the lawn or wooing girls or doing homework or driving around. I put their music onto mix tapes (and later mix CDs), declared "The Kiss" one of my favorite pieces of noise ever, reveled in the mix of "Close to Me" with the Dixie horns that I found on Napster, and used "Night Like This" to help assuage a breakup. This band was a formative part of my experience, and here they were, playing all of those songs and a whole lot more right in front of me. It wasn't all perfect, but in a night full of good things that made me feel ten years younger, I have no desire to complain.

Two things that really struck me about this show:

1. Robert Smith may look a bit worse for wear, but I couldn't tell the difference between his voice on Friday night and his voice on, say, Show, which comes from recordings made in 1992. What's even more impressive is that he still sounded just as good at the end of the show. I've gotten use to cutting older metal singers (Geoff Tate, Rob Halford, James LaBrie, even Bruce Dickinson to an extent) some slack when it comes to performing their earlier material, because their vocal cords are too damaged by age and years of the rock 'n roll lifestyle to hit those high notes with the same precision they had when younger, and I expected to do so with Smith, too, so (and even with the caveat of having less demanding material to sing) I was really surprised about how good he sounded.
   
   
2. No keyboards for this show whatsoever. I think I might have heard an organ piped in for "Close to Me," but otherwise Robert and Porl Thompson orchestrated all of the necessary keyboard parts to guitar and cut the rest. It didn't always work properly - "Hot Hot Hot!!!" sounded a little thin without the fake horns, for example - but mostly it was cool to hear the parts transposed to guitar. I'm not sure why the band didn't just hire a touring keyboard player, but maybe that would have hindered putting all of those songs into one set.
   

Set List for The Cure

1. underneath the stars
2. prayers for rain
3. a night like this
4. the end of the world
5. lovesong
6. to wish impossible things
7. pictures of you
8. lullaby
9. fascination street
10. from the edge of the deep green sea
11. the perfect boy
12. hot hot hot!!!
13. the only one
14. wrong number
15. the walk
16. sleep when i'm dead
17. push
18. friday i'm in love
19. inbetween days
20. just like heaven
21. primary
22. shake dog shake
23. charlotte sometimes
24. one hundred years
25. baby rag dog book

Encore 1

1. E1: if only tonight we could sleep...
2. the kiss

Encore 2

1. freakshow
2. close to me
3. why can't i be you?

Encore 3

1. boys don't cry
2. jumping someone else's train
3. grinding halt
4. 10:15 saturday night
5. killing an arab