Framing Armageddon (Something Wicked - Part 1)

Iced Earth are one of the very few bands that carry on the spirit of the proper power metal and don't forget that the roots of this genre actually lie in thrash, or at least one could say that they were that way up until The Glorious Burden which was hardly a good album, because the band lost much of its aggression and their best vocalist - Matt Barlow - and replaced him with Tim "Ripper" Owens.

But the point of this review is not The Glorious Burden, but IE's new album - Framing Armageddon, a follow-up to Something Wicked This Way Comes. Is it a return to form from the years past or is it even worse? I'd say that neither, however it is a damn good piece of power metal.

The most noticable change is Owens. His vocals have changed a lot since TGB, he stopped being a Rob Halford wannabe and developed his own style of singing. Even though his "normal" vocals aren't that much outstanding (but they're also not bad), his shrieks sure are and the best example of that would be the end of the song "Framing Armageddon" and I can honestly say that he is a very good substitute for Barlow.

As for the music - Framing Armageddon will probably be bashed a lot by people who say that "Iced Earth = Night of the Stormrider", because technically, this CD is nothing too marvelous, the riffs are rather simple and there arent' too many soloes, however as I like to say "Who cares how it's done as long as it's good", I couldn't care less about the lack of guitar wankery, because nearly all the songs are pretty much high quality, and the POWER that The Glorious Burden was severely lacking is BACK and you can clearly hear that in Ten Thousand Strong, Infiltrate and Assimilate or the title track. In some tracks (mainly the short interludes) there are also included some middle-eastern themes that sound pretty neat and add to the atmosphere. It is also worth to mention that the whole CD is very epic, and as I am a hog for epicness this adds up to the positive aspects.

However, this is not an absolutely flawless piece of music and there are some negative things that need to be said.

First of all: the short interludes. OK, I can understand throwing in like 2 or 3 of them as like 1 intro, 1 before something ass-kicking and 1 outro, but HERE you have like SEVEN such short tracks while like 3 of them could be easily merged with the upcoming songs. Maybe not something very bad but it is somehow irritating. I mean what's the bloody point?

Second: there are filler tracks on the CD, and when I look at the songlist I'm often like "uhm... I don't remember this one" (songs like "Retribution through the ages" or "A Charge to Keep")

Third: Ten Thousand Strong reminds me too much of "Declaration Day" but I may be just schizophrenic

And fourth: There are songs that are a tiny bit irritating and for me are a "skip" material, songs such as The Clouding (interesting, one of the worst songs is also the longest) with a very whiny chorus or Order of the Rose.

As for a summary: This is not "Night of the Stormrider", this is not "Horror Show" but it is also not "The Glorious Burden" but as sure as hell it is Iced Earth, it's good, it's some very good power metal and it's one of the best albums of the year (but mainly because 2007 is rather poor in terms of metal).

Highlights: Ten Thousand Strong, Infiltrate and Assimilate, When Stars Collide, Something Wicked part 1