Framing Armageddon (Something Wicked - Part 1)

I quite honestly do enjoy Iced Earth. most of their albums have songs that I listen to almost everyday. Who can forget the awesome twosome that put them on the map: Night of the Stormrider and Burnt Offerings? I'm sorry, but this doesn't seem like the IE that put out those two show-stoppers. And no, I'm not talking about the lack of long-time frontman Barlow, as Tim Owens is not the problem here. I like the story, art, and a few of the songs off this album, but I simply can't escape a strange feeling that comes over me every time I listen to more than the album's highlight songs. A feeling similar to taking too much Nyquil after a long day of fever. I'm of course talking about falling asleep.

Something that many people instantly point out about the album is the tracklist. And I agree with them. 19 tracks is indeed TOO FREAKING LONG! Especially when several of them are medium-length instrumentals, that surprisingly, lack instruments for the most part. Most of the songs that aren't instrumentals simply plod along, not even with a never-ending chugga-chugga riff to keep you company. A Charge to Keep, Order of the Rose (although it ends on a great solo), The Clouding, Retribution Through the Ages, Something Wicked Part 2, When Stars Collide; the list goes on and on. There's very few songs that will actually make you think, "oh, yeah, this is Iced Earth."

I should probably go into more detail on the non-instrumental songs, though. Have any of you Iced Earth fans (or detractors) ever heard an Iced Earth ballad? Of course you have! Everyone knows that they essentially follow the same formula of soft acoustic diddle, followed by a pretty heavy riff, with other instruments and vocals changing to fit. Well, aside from the few typical Iced Earth songs, most of the actual songs simply sound like the soft part of a ballad played for five entire minutes! At least I Died For You was barely four! The Clouding seems to be the biggest offender in this department. It obviously attempts to be epic and crushing, but simply falls flat on it's face by trying to just be slow and pretty much all acoustic. Owens barely even pushes himself, and the song is the longest on the album, at nearly TEN MINUTES LONG! I'm sorry, but I've only listened to this song once all the way through waiting for a musical climax that never happened. Most of the regular songs are like that. They simply plod along, trying to evoke feelings of sadness and loss, but the angry highlights of the album do a better job of that!

The instrumentals aren't really anything to brag about, but once you take away Jon's gallop riffs, is there anything really? When Jon takes them away from himself and replaces them with the acoustic passages from every ballad and song off of Dark Saga, you get pretty uninteresting stuff. Even at quiet parts, the bass is nearly non-existent, and the drums, like almost every other instrument, simply plod along, providing nothing new or interesting. I'm still not exactly sure why Richard Christy left (or was fired) before this release, but I think with another usually-fast instrumentalist contradicting Jon's ideas, that this album would have been much more well-balanced. Not even DragonForce's tried-and-true method of injecting solos into crap songs can work, with probably the best example being Order of the Rose. The riff is unimpressive and plodding (plodding must be my word of the day :)), and even though the solo at the end is one of the best moments on the album, you have to sit through nearly six minutes of snoozeville to get to it. A problem easily remedied by skipping, but I think this song can and should have been faster.

That one thing seems like it could be the remedy tot he entire slump of an album. Trim away at the excess and fat, and you can find some real gems, but it's simply buried under Jon Schaffer's desire to write ill-directed epic songs.

Fortunately, this album had a few saving graces. All of these traits belong to the good tracks. It proves that when Jon Schaffer is actually trying, he can still write a track that slays. Ten Thousand Strong, Infiltrate and Assimilate, The Domino Decree, and Framing Armageddon are easily the best songs on this album, in fact Framing Armageddon is one of my favorite IE songs. One of the biggest things about these tracks is that they let Ripper actually live up to his name. He tears through these songs with fervor and emotion, as well as enough inhuman screams to give Halford a run for his money. Expanding on that, Tim's singing is another thing bad about most of the slow tracks, but it's because of the nature of the songs: he sings slowly, and is overlayered by a massive chorus, that also sings slowly. Ripper's not meant to sing slow or controlled, he's meant to scream his lungs out! Jon drills away at those angry triplets like there's no tomorrow, Brent Smedley comes close to Christy's ability behind the kit, and I'm sure that if I could hear the bass, even it simply mimicking the guitar riff would probably be enough to floor me.

The last thing of controversy on this album is the story. I personally think the story across both the album's is pretty darn cool, ad it's extremely easy to follow, especially with the booklet. The bad thing about the story is that most of the songs seem to simply be there to drive the point home, and after the Something Wicked Trilogy off SWTWC, the lyrics lose a lot of impact. They seem to simply describe the same situation over and over, without really adding anything new. Funnily enough, the lyrical premise of Framing Armageddon is set up and described at least eight times in the album alone. As other reviewers have stated, the story has been gone over enough in the Something Wicked Trilogy. I personally think Schaffer should have just authorized the comic version of the story and spent the time he used on these albums to make albums more of the NOTS and BO caliber.

Highlights: Ten Thousand Strong, Infiltrate and Assimilate, The Domino Decree, Framing Armageddon