Iced Earth's Reviews

Something Wicked This Way Comes

More great stuff from Iced Earth

Iced Earth's performances are solid, as always, though not quite as good as most of their other stuff. MacDonough bass is as overshadowed as ever, and not as good as Digiorgio(names probably wrong, sorry) from "Horror Show", but he gets the job done. Schaffer provides a greater variety of riffs in this one, with fewer thrashy ones, and generally less aggressive sounding ones. Prator plays solid drums as well, with very good double bass, though he too isn't as good as Smedley or Christy, or the guy from "Burnt Offerings", who's name I can't recall. Tarnowski is the real standout, with his leads on this album being the best of any Iced Earth album I've heard. Barlow's vocals aren't as strong as on his 3 previous albums either, though still some of the best you will ever hear. All this may sound kind of negative, but it really isn't meant to be. They just aren't quite as good as they usually are, which is still immeasurably better than most bands, and easily maintains their position in the trio of the very best bands.(the others are Metallica and Tool, if any one cares.)

Song wise, this album is bit less cohesive than their other albums, which can be good and bad.(In this case, it's somewhat bad.) In many ways this album is like Metallica's Load, (despite not sounding much like it) in that they are experimenting and expanding their sound after the album during which they removed most of their more progressive tendencies. Thus they have a greater variety of song styles, but with less variety of sounds within the individual songs. So now have several ballads, some straight metal songs, some short thrashy stuff and one prog-epic. The problem is that they didn't expand the styles as much as the did the track listing(13 songs), so it is occasionally a bit repetitive. For example "Melancholy", "Watching Over Me" and "Blessed Are You" are remarkably similar, moreso than any songs on any of their other albums, with "Melancholy" and "Blessed Are You" being the weakest(though still pretty good) Iced Earth songs I've heard. "My Own Savior" isn't particularly brilliant either. However, the rest of the album is very strong. "Burning Times" has great vocals, and some good rhythm work. "Disciples of the Lie" is their most aggressive song, extremely fast, with Barlow's most vicious vocals of all. "Consequences" is a great semi-progressive ballad, with a brilliant mid-section and some awesome soloing. "My Own Savior" is more pounding, speed-metal rage with lots of double bass, followed by the slower, moodier "Reaping Stone", which has an awesome riff during the chorus. "1776" is a classic instrumental, with more great solos, and some lovely flute. The "Something Wicked" trilogy at the end is very good, though it suffers from it's vast inferiority to "Dante's Inferno" and "The Suffering Trilogy" from the previous albums. Still, it's got some great moments, particularly the chorus from "Birth of the Wicked".

In the end, this is definitely a 5 star album. Not being quite as good as the best material from one of the best bands ever isn't too much of a criticism. If you don't own any Iced Earth this is a pretty good starting point, despite being relatively weak, because it is more melodic than most, as well as less dense and more immediate.

Buy this album on Amazon at $14.99