Iced Earth - The Crucible Of Man (Something Wicked Part II)
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CD Details
Artist: Iced EarthEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2008-09-09
Music Label: Steamhammer / SPV
Soundtracks:
- In Sacred Flames
- Behold The Wicked Child
- Minions Of The Watch
- The Revealing
- A Gift Or A Curse
- Crown Of The Fallen
- The Dimension Gauntlet
- I Walk Alone
- Harbinger Of Fate
- Crucify The King
- Sacrificial Kingdoms
- Something Wicked (Part 3)
- Divide And Devour
- Come What May
- Epilogue
Music reviews of The Crucible Of Man (Something Wicked Part II)
Music Review: Weak album heavy with filler
Rating: 2 Stars
I was doubly shocked to learn back in April or May that Tim Owens had been fired from the band just to bring back Matt Barlow. The second shock was that I learned this four or five months after the fact---back in December 2007.
While Matthew Barlow is a phenomenal vocalist, and arguably the voice of Iced Earth, he voluntarily left the band, and Tim Owens is my favorite vocalist, who utterly blew me away with stellar work on "The Glorious Burden" and "Framing Armageddon".
It's quite obvious from the start of "The Crucible of Man" that the album was written initially for Tim Owens. All the songs have the sense that Matt's voice isn't being used properly; it's being put into vocal situations that Owens would either excel in, or make his own, whereas Matt Barlow feels like wasted talent. The only song which really screams with the very essence of Matt Barlow that I absolutely love---the throaty, husky, wolf-like shouts---is "I Walk Alone".
And in fact, while Framing Armageddon had at least half a dozen stand-out tracks, this one only has two---"I Walk Alone" and "Come What May". "I Walk Alone" is simply one of the best Iced Earth songs I have ever heard, encompassing everything great about their music style, and "Come What May" is an appropriately long, somber song with a great mix of different instruments and vocal ranges, and great emotional power.
But that's only two songs out of fifteen. About two or three others are just "good" and the rest are pure filler.
The good: "In Sacred Flames", "Something Wicked Pt. 3", "Epilogue".
Starting with Framing Armageddon, I felt a definite relation between their new sound and that of Blind Guardian. It was only faint, and never overwhelming in many songs (save for The Domino Decree), but for me, Blind Guardian is a very hit and miss sort of band, with many more misses than hits. I find the entire Demons & Wizards album "Touched By the Crimson King" unlistenable save for the title track, and "A Night at the Opera" (Blind Guardian) has only three good song for me.
That Blind Guardian sound is incorporated to a far greater degree amongst much of the filler tracks on this album, and the track "Divide and Devour" is simply not an Iced Earth track: it sounds completely and utterly like it was written for Blind Guardian. The vocal line even features a singer who sounds exactly like Hansi Kürsch! And not for one of their hits.
So to surmise: Was bringing Matthew Barlow a good decision? That's only a matter of opinion; but in my opinion, seeing as the album was written for Tim Owens, he should have at least finished this before Schaffer kicked him. That would make a re-release of the two albums together with Barlow's vocals twice as valuable.
But that would all be implying that the album would be good and well-written to begin with. Simply put, it was not well-written. The music is largely listless, unremarkable, uninteresting, weak filler, with the exception of two songs, "I Walk Alone" and "Come What May" which are prime and ripe examples of the musical genius of Jon Schaffer. Listening to these, I can't bring myself to believe that he wrote the rest of the album.
The story itself seems to bounce back and forth for me from a cheap, childish cop-out ending, to a more mature sort of ending.
Spoiler alerts
What really doesn't help the feeling of a childish ending is the picture of Set Abominae apparently as a human teenager with a look of total retardation on his face in some scene where he's apparently morphing into his Setian self.
At the end, perhaps the decision by Set Abominae to defy his destiny of destroying humanity sounds like the adult, mature thing to do, it permanently seals the fate of this storyline, and completely destroys the image of Set Abominae as an "abomination" on mankind---all those pictures you see of him riding on a monstrous creature, or standing atop a pile of dead humans, or the album cover itself, are all rendered nonexistant.
On its own, the ending to the story sounds rather moodily fitting, but when you go back and listen to the build-up just for this from "Framing Armageddon", the sheer passion and intensity of the Ten Thousand, as voiced by the passionate and intense voice of Tim Owens, it ends up feeling like one big punch in the face to everything and everyone that had happened to the Setians, their bristling hatred and injustice, and their work of 10,000 years, just because humanity has settled down on Earth, and has redeeming features. I'm sure the Setians had redeeming features themselves, before being almost completely exterminated by mankind.
Description of The Crucible Of Man (Something Wicked Part II)
While the 1998 album provided a general overview of the story, Jon Schaffer has been conceptualizing for well over a decade. The saga is being fully brought to life with the release of the back-to-back conceptual albums "Framing Armageddon" and "The Crucible Of Man." While both albums provide answers to mysteries the previous releases would create, the timeliness of the story in today s world is guaranteed to keep people thinking and guessing. Schaffer s ability to convey the central themes and events of the story without always revealing exactly why characters decisions are made and how events come to pass, will keep fans of the saga coming back as future mediums for the "Something Wicked" storyline are revealed.The Crucible Of Man is the culmination of the storyline. The absolute pinnacle of the American Metal Powerhouse s career, and happily the full-length return of singer Matt Barlow.
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