### Iced Earth: The crucible of man

#### 08/08/08 || Euthanatos

After releasing the first part of the Something Wicked trilogy, I was, as you can read in my rather unfavorable review, extremely disappointed. But then something happened to rock our worlds (us Iced Earth fans, that is), as it often does in metal: Matt Barlow came back to save the day. And what’s even better, he showed he was still the fucking man, as could be witnessed in the Pyramaze album he recorded.

So could Jon Schaffer get his fucking act together and release something fucking memorable, not some ridiculously over the top hogwash like the last two albums? I mean, I’m not asking for much here, I love “Horror Show” for fuck’s sake. Just give me some badass riffs, you know, the kind you used to write?

Things start off looking bleak, as “epic” is obviously what Schaffer is going for in this trilogy. “In Sacred Flames” is insanely pretentious, but it’s actually really good. “Behold the Wicked Child” is the first real metal song, and it’s not bad. Not bad at all. Barlow makes all the difference, though. Sure, Ripper is a killer singer, unbelievably good, even, but he just seems to have two problems. One, he is bizarrely unlucky. Two, he doesn’t really have a personality of his own. He is more of an emulating kind of guy, which can be appropriate, but not on Iced Earth.

“Minions of the Watch” is more filler shenanigans, let’s skip to “A Gift or a Curse”. It’s a semi-acoustic track where Barlow kicks our collective balls. Halfway through the track your default Iced Earth power metal comes in. Pretty solid.

“Crown of the Fallen” next. Pretty meh, some nice vocal lines, especially on the chorus, but that’s about it. A lot of “Dark Saga” moments throughout.

“The Dimension Gauntlet” is a very fast track which features some of the guitar work I’ve been longing to hear from Schaffer for about 10 years now. Where the fuck was this? This means that you can still do it, why not fucking do it, then? Fucking asshole cunt motherfucker, just wants to piss me off.

“I Walk Alone” follows up, this song is known already by most as it was released in a single/EP/whatever. Aggressive vocals from Barlow, the instrumental part isn’t that inspired, too many vocals on the bridge/chorus, and I don’t particularly care for that.

“Harbringer of Fate” reminds me of “A Question of Heaven”, with the mellow beginning with the absolutely rocking vocals by Barlow. I want to suck his cock. Bad. Maybe that was an overshare. Schaffer naturally tries to ruin it putting to many vocal layers on this.

“Crucify the King” starts off sounding as if it could be pretty heavy, brutally heavy even, but it was all a facade. A facade, I say! But it’s still good, one of the better ones. “Sacrificial Kingdoms” also features some of that long lost fast-picking guitar riffs, and it pleases me.

“Something Wicked (part 3)” comes next, I don’t really know what this is supposed to mean. If you’re writing a trilogy, why name one of the tracks on the second part of the trilogy part 3? Do you any of you get this? Can you explain to me? Thanks. I appreciate it. No, really, I do.

“Divide and Devour” is a heavier moment, a lot of aggressiveness on the vocals and the guitars, great drum work. Brent Smedley is a talented individual, I’m really glad Schaffer brought him back into the fold.

“Come What May” is the last song, not counting the outro. Wasn’t that a Stone Sour song? A tacky one at that? I don’t know. I’m too tired to think, this is a long album. I like some of the different passages on this though.

It took me a few spins to get this, I have to confess. When I listened to it the first time, I was literally depressed, thinking this really was just the continuation of the previous album. But listening to it again and again, I suddenly started to realize a lot of the different details on the album and came to enjoy them. While there is still some stuff that is just a bit too much, Schaffer did have enough common sense to leave things decent.

Give this album a chance, it is light years better than “Framing Armageddon”. And believe me, I also gave that album a chance, listening to it a few times. There are no redeeming qualities about it, and Ripper’s vocals just become more annoying each time you listen. Barlow, on the other hand, sounds better than ever, and the more I listen to it, the more I am impressed at his return.

I wonder if Schaffer is doing a Star Wars analogy here. You know, like the second trilogy, the first one was god-awful, the second one was cool, the third one blew your mind, even though it wasn’t all that good, but it was so much better than the previous two, it gave you that impression. I guess we’ll see.

The cover: It’s really hard to go wrong with an Iced Earth cover, and as usual it looks great.

6 Set Abominaes out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2008
- Label: SPV
- Website: www.icedearth.com
- Band
- Jon Schaffer: rhythm guitar, backing vocals
- Matt Barlow: vocals
- Troy Seele: lead guitar
- Brent Smedley: drums
- Freddie Vidales: bass

- Tracklist
- 01. In Sacred Flames
- 02. Behold the Wicked Child
- 03. Minions of the Watch
- 04. The Revealing
- 05. A Gift or a Curse
- 06. Crown of the Fallen
- 07. The Dimension Gauntlet
- 08. I Walk Alone
- 09. Harbinger of Fate
- 10. Crucify the King
- 11. Sacrificial Kingdoms
- 12. Something Wicked (Part 3)
- 13. Divide and Devour
- 14. Come What May
- 15. Epilogue