Framing Armageddon (Something Wicked - Part 1)

The target for shit hurling this time is Iced Earth. Schaffer stopped writing anything worthwhile around 1995 when Burnt Offerings was released, and even that record had the incredibly needlessly self indulgent turd that was Dante's Inferno.

I'd like to get this out of the way early, Tim Owens is a magnificent vocalist, he just has a knack for being in the wrong band at the wrong time. He got famous for trying to replace Rob Halford in Judas Priest right after they released their masterpiece, Painkiller. What happened is usually considered Priest's worst album, Jugulator. After Halford got his shit together and returned, Owens was out on his ass again. Eventually, he was snatched up by Iced Earth after their longtime vocalist, Matt Barlow, quit. Once again, they released the worst album of their career with The Glorious Burden. Owens was able to squeeze out another shit burger with this one, Framing Armageddon, before Barlow decided to rejoin, once again leaving Owens out on his ass.

So, let's not blame Owens for the shitty record, this one is all Schaffer's fault. Most all of the riffs are bland and uninteresting, the drumming is solid, but nothing special, the bass is absent, and Owens' vocals rip. I really do think Ripper could really be considered one of the better vocalists in the genre if he would stop joining well established bands way past their prime and subsequently getting replaced when the original guy comes back. Jon Schaffer suffers from delusions of grandeur that make people like Peter Popoff look humble. He is also beyond obsessed with his Set Abominae character. Alright, he made a cool album cover on Something Wicked This Way Comes, but for the love of god let him go. Making a concept album based on a fucking album cover is about as stupid as one can get. Not to mention he said something about wanting to write a graphic novel about him (side note: the term "graphic novel" really twists my tits. Quit lying to yourself you fucking nerds, it's a comic book).

This record suffers the same problems that Blind Guardian's trainwreck, Nightfall in Middle-Earth, has. First off, it's a shitty concept album. I cannot follow this "story" for the life of me, even with the booklet in front of me. There are a bazillion random interludes that add nothing but headache and carry the story about as well as a rat can carry an elephant. And again, there are actually some genuinely great songs on here. Ten Thousand Strong is wonderful, Infiltrate and Assimilate is great, and Framing Armageddon is catchy and almost reminiscent of when IE was actually good.

But the songs that suck... really, REALLY suck. There are maybe three or four good songs on a 19 track album. Nine-shitting-teen. Nightfall was worse with 22, but unless you have 19 amazing songs and you cannot consciously cut some of them, there is no excuse for having that many goddamn tracks on an album. And hell, if that was the case, release a double album or something. I'd rather inject my dick with Blazin' Buffalo Hot Sauce and let a warthog gnaw it down to a microscopic stub then ever listen to A Charge to Keep again. The same can be said for pretty much any song that I didn't list earlier, which means there are about 15 different horrid types of torture I'm willing to inflict upon myself than ever hear this self indulgent pile of ejaculate ever again. Honestly, what came over these guys when they wrote plodding garbage like When Stars Collide or Order of the Rose? Did they not think that those riffs were repetitive and boring. Most of the time, Owens is restrained and unable to really let his voice rip like it should. The opening scream to Ten Thousand Strong is pretty much his only shining moment on this whole thing.

This also fails really hard in the "epic" category. Adding oodles of superfluous musical interludes does not make you look ambitious, it makes you look pretentious and pompous. The Clouding is also a really shitty track that attempts to be epic, and falls flat on its face. Being overly long does not an epic song make.

So when Schaffer isn't blowing his load all over this piece of ass, it actually isn't half bad. Setian Massacre, Ten Thousand Strong, Infiltrate and Assimilate, and Framing Armageddon are the only good tracks on this whole album, and that's still not saying very much. Iced Earth needs to just roll over and die, they're done, they've tapped the well of musical integrity dry after Burnt Offerings. If you must hear something from this album, check out the four songs I mentioned earlier in the paragraph, but don't let them trick you into thinking the rest of the album is anywhere near as good. Otherwise, just stick with Night of the Stormrider. Overhyped record that gave me one of the strongest cases of buyer's remorse I've ever had, avoid at all costs.