Bruce Dickinson released "The Chemical Wedding" on September 15th, 1998, and made the finest album of his career away from IRON MAIDEN. Working again with producer and guitarist Roy Z, and with Adrian Smith on second guitar, he built a record around the visionary poetry and paintings of William Blake — the title comes from a seventeenth-century alchemical text, and "Jerusalem" sets Blake's words directly. Musically it is darker, heavier and slower than anything MAIDEN had done, tuned down and dominated by enormous riffs on "King in Crimson" and "Book of Thel." Dickinson rejoined IRON MAIDEN the following year, taking Smith with him, and "The Chemical Wedding" stands as the peak of the solo detour that made that return possible on his own terms. Roy Z and Dickinson reunited for "Tyranny of Souls" in 2005, but nothing in the solo catalogue has matched the density and conviction of this record.