The Crucible of Man (Something Wicked - Part 2)

The Crucible of Man is the 2nd half of the Something Wicked Trilogy. Yes, as weird as it sounds, but it is what it is. Jon Schaffer had some problems during the writing process of the second half of the album, he planned to write a whole album for each of the songs of the trilogy, so The Crucible of Man was supposed to be the story of Birth of the Wicked and a third album was supposed to be an album for The Coming Curse. Iced Earth also brought Matt Barlow back. After Schaffer heard that Barlow was active in the metal scene again with his work on the Pyramaze album Immortal, he immediately wanted him back in the band and kicked out Tim Owens in the most tasteless way imaginable. But as Schaffer said in an interview "it's business".

While The Crucible of Man in the beginning was really enjoyable, I can't fool myself to enjoy this album anymore. Yes, we have an epic song with Behold the Wicked Child and it was gifted with a In Sacred Flames as a great opener, even though there are some jarring notes in the chorus of Behold the Wicked Child that still bug me. And then there is the weirdest thing that I have ever found on an album: They have cut songs in half and presented them as 2 seperate songs: Minions of the Watch and The Revealing are clearly one song, which you can hear out by the fact that the first one has no end part and the second one has only the pause riff with which Minions of the Watch is supposed to continue. Same with Crown of the Fallen and The Dimension Gauntlet. Who came up with such a stupid idea? The cuts between the songs are completely annoying, no matter on which medium you listen to them, since there is always a short break between them and just ruin the songs, and even without it, the songs as a whole aren't so special that you hear out anything exciting there. The Dimension Gauntlet even ends with the ending from The Coming Curse until it fades out. What a waste of time!

Between them there is A Gift or a Curse with Jon Schaffer on the vocals, but that's the only exciting thing here. After it you need some patience, because Iced Earth have decided to sound as monotonous as never before or after. Yes, you have some slower tunes on I Walk Alone, Harbinger of Fate and Crucify the King and some faster tunes on Sacrificial Kingdoms and Divide Devour, but they all sound as if Jon Schaffer had no time to finish them properly and stretched the songs by repeating the choruses and some melody parts until the song reached 4 or 5 minutes. In case of Divide Devour he hasn't even done that. This song has no solo, no variety, just 2 minutes thrashing with that choir from In Sacred Flames Sped up and that was it.

The worst thing here is Something Wicked Part 3. This is the laziest thing that I have ever seen. It sounds as if Schaffer had an unused riff and made a 4 and a half minute song out of it, then didn't come up with something "smart", so he let Barlow write the lyrics. And he didn't care either and just slightly altered the lyrics from The Coming Curse.

The best song by far on this album is Come What May. This, I Walk Alone and Behold the Wicked Child are maybe the only songs Schaffer has actually finished for this album and it really shows. It is a masterpiece, a very deep and emotional song, leaving the stupid story behind and talking about the destiny of mankind. Barlow has his best performance here with the middle part and one of his highest notes he ever did next to the end of Creator Failure. Instead of a guitar solo there is a melancholic instrumental part with a flute in it. The fact that this gem is set as the last song on this album before Epilogue, which is just Overture from Framing Armageddon with different drums, frustrates me even more, because Iced Earth really could have created something if they took more time for this album.