The first thing that one notices about this album is the abundance of pink crap on the cover art. If the last long player's artwork was dominated by a big thicc ass, then this one is a maelstrom of pink. The concept itself though is pretty cool: a fire spirit and a blood spirit are joined by hair, and they're squeezing some big brain to impart their strengths to some fetus in the middle. Some weird shit that is crazy cool, yet has nothing to do with the album! The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell Part II is the one that most of the fans, including myself prefer. When I look at the back of the cd or the tracklist I always, "hmph!" gladly and get excited at the songs. On this album David Defeis also realized he should start connecting songs in some kind of cohesive thread. Here in part II we get lyrical call backs to titles of songs from part I, as well as having the recurring Heaven And Hell melody theme being inserted into many tracks. A chick character, Emalaith, is mentioned in several numbers and the big epic of the album is titled after her.

The very first song, the grandiosely titled Symphony Of Steele, is one of Virgin Steele's fastest and most explosive anthems David has written. It is also a track I would never show someone as a first listen to the band. The reason I say this is because the intro has the best example of the horrible orchestrated keyboards. There are tons of horns and strings, and it's obvious this keyboard is a cheap piece of shit. Whenever I play this song in my car and another human being is with me, I end up talking loudly over the first minute and a half until it kicks in. David might have realized this because on a remix of this for the hits comp, Hymns To Victory, he himself talks over most of the low budget sounds. When the song truly begins though, it is a whole different fucking ballgame! The pace is steady and fast and then starting with the second verse, the snare drum begins to do a super cool military roll that just screams power and might! Symphony Of Steele makes you wanna kick ass and rend and tear the flesh of your enemies. Except for that intro. Crown Of Glory is a monster mini epic that has its ending theme revisited and revised on the House Of Atreus Act I album. Much in the same vein as Weeping Of The Spirits, this is all about defiance. There's probably alot of metaphors hidden in the sweeping majestic imagery here, but I'm not smart enough to figure it out. Doh! Musically, this has some fat ass juicy riffs and an impassioned middle section where David busts out the great sounding PIANO and starts screaming about challenging the nine in Heaven and it's inspiring as all hell.

The middle of the album has some competent tracks that get lost to time due to what comes after them. Twilight Of The Gods and Rising Unchained are serviceable, dark midtempo songs that bridge us to some epic moments that follow. Prometheus The Fallen One and Emalaith both vie for the title of "album epic." Prometheus utilizes a cool Eastern sounding vocal melody that fits the godhead figure of the title quite well. It's also notable for its acoustic and chill interlude. Emalaith is what most people consider to the be centerpiece of this album. The lyrics contain callbacks galore, the Heaven and Hell theme appears, and then the character of Emalaith is referenced in the closing track, Victory Is Mine. One really important thing to note is that during the spooky intro is when David begins the line," I hear the weeping of the spirits," there are backing vocals that come into the mix that straight up sound like wailing, tormented souls. Other than that, he really has true conviction in his voice and it sounds genuinely gutted when, "Emalaith dies / alone in the night / lost like a child / she leaves me." And when David says, "I'll tear the walls of Erebus down," YOU BELIEVE HIM. This track is worth every second of its length.

Strawgirl however, is a horrible piece of shit and is every bad idea for the next four albums rolled into one shitty song. This sounds like an awful, schmaltzy Christian Rock Power Ballad. Nothing on either Heaven and Hell album, Invictus, or the Atreus albums is as craptacious as Strawgirl. Devil / Angel would have been the "worst" song on the album if Strawgirl didn't grace us with its presence, but it's not THAT bad. Its biggest offense is that it's a plodder that really goes nowhere. I probably made this sound worse than it is, and that's because everything else on this album is so goddamn good, and Unholy Water and Victory Is Mine bring us home in a most theatrical way. Unholy Water is another mid tempo track, but this one is done much better with more earnest melodies and vivid imagery. Victory Is Mine has such a conclusive feel to it that I am fooled into thinking this really was a two part concept album. Unholy Water literally bleeds into Victory Is Mine, (as in the two songs run together) but the latter differs from the former quite drastically. Victory Is Mine is a revenge song about finding the soul of Emalaith and being with her forever. You believe it when David swears to kill all those who stand in his way. The outro cry of," Oh Emalaith, Oh Emalaith / Smile by the light of the moon / I will be here with you soon," is full of yearning and then David lets out one of nature's most glorious vocal high notes to end this album. Well, not quite end. Like with the first album, there's an instrumental title track at the end. But after Victory Is Mine, who cares?

The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell is a two album set that takes you on an almost three hour journey of old school American Metal. These two albums were at the beginning of David DeFeis' manic creative phase that would produce bonafide metal monsters. If anything, listen to this band for the integration of old school metal and the abundance of piano.