The Crucible of Man (Something Wicked - Part 2)

So this is the first proper Iced Earth album with Matt Barlow back on vocals, and that already is going to divide fans. Some will say it’s amazing just because Matt is back, others will say that even Matt can not save it. But I’m just going to concentrate on the music itself.

Like its predecessor, this album is a grower. There was nothing especially striking the first time I heard this, but it seems to get better each time I listen to it. This album is Iced Earth at its most epic, with the sole exception of the Gettysburg Trilogy which may be able to contest that title. A few months ago I would have sworn that Iced Earth would be more epic with Tim than Matt, but somehow these layered vocals are even more epic with Matt than with Tim. (Yes, I stated in my I Walk Among You review that they don’t suit Matt, but I’ve changed my mind.)

The album starts out with an intro called “In Sacred Flames”, and this seems to be a direct continuation of The Awakening from Framing Armageddon. I could easily imagine the songs fading into each other. The intro gets rather heavy, and then Behold the Wicked Child begins. The song isn’t really that amazing, but I’ll be damned if that isn’t one of the best album beginnings ever. The next songs, Minions of the Watch, The Revealing, and A Gift or a Curse, are rather bland and uninteresting, but they are listenable and build up into the heavier parts of the album which follow.
Both the music and the storyline kick off with Crown of the Fallen and The Dimension Gauntlet, both of which are sadly only a few minutes long. They are followed by I Walk Alone, which we all know by now. Perhaps intentionally, it is the eighth song of the album, just as Ten Thousand Strong was also on a single and was the eight song. It’s a good song, of course. The next song, Harbinger of Fate, is less heavy and more melancholic/melodic, but it becomes heavier and more epic with a nice choir in the background. This is followed by the definite highlight of the album, four extremely solid songs: Crucify the King, Sacrificial Kingdoms, Something Wicked Part 3, and Divide Devour. Something Wicked Part 3 borrows a riff from The Coming Curse which is a nice flashback to the original Something Wicked trilogy.
The last proper song on the album is easily the best: Come What May. This is an emotional, long song very reminiscent of classic Iced Earth songs like A Question of Heaven. It blends old Iced Earth melody and emotion with new Iced Earth layered vocals and the different guitar sound, and is a very fitting end to an excellent two-album series. The Epilogue is very similar to Overture on Framing Armageddon, which closes the circle.

There are not that many stand out songs on this album like Framing Armageddon; there is no Setian Massacre or Ten Thousand Strong. It is, however, devoid of the interludes that the last album was so full of. Some of those interludes were very good, but I am happy that most of the music is actual songs instead. The album doesn’t seem to pause as much, and once the music and story pick up, it keeps going very epic to the end. I am using the word “epic” so much because there really isn’t a more fitting word to describe this album; The Crucible of Man is probably the most epic album I have heard.