The Crucible of Man (Something Wicked - Part 2)

As trite and tacky as it is, I'm going to make a vague analogy of why Iced Earth's 'The Crucible of Man' sucks the mighty suck with a disturbing talent. I had root canal a couple of days ago, and despite the two needles of anaesthetic I had that was supposed to numb the pain, about two nerves in I was experiencing a respectable amount of pain. My only saving grace during those two hours of having my mouth propped open and probed continuously like a large-mouthed hooker at a suspiciously male-only party, was that at least I wasn't listening to 'The Crucible of Man'. Yes I know, I'm witty as fuck but seriously, this album is yet more proof of Iced Earth's utter inability to write coherent and consistent albums.

I suppose it's inevitable to talk about Barlow's return to the band and commenting on the impact of this event. First things first; if you thought that Barlow's return would somehow redeem Iced Earth's abominable past efforts with Owens on vocals then I suggest you forcibly take a claw hammer to your reproductive organs. You're officially a fucking moron and shouldn't breed, now rack off and go back to focusing on NASCAR and breathing through your mouth. Admittedly Barlow sounds the same as ever and it's hard to fault him because Iced Earth sounds more Iced Earth-like with his return but the music is still shit. People seem to forget that Barlow just stands around belting out whatever crap lyrics he's handed, he doesn't have a sizable influence on the song's riffs or compositions and thus they're once again, really really terrible.

The riffs are as tedious as ever; Jon Schaffer hasn't written a decent riff since "Wolf" and before that it was "Violate" or "Stand Alone"; Iced Earth riffs elude me because they all blur together after a certain point. The man just lacks staying power and creativity to drive the band forward. 'The Crucible of Man' shows us a familiar set of riffs but Schaffer manages to blow his wad of bearable riffs within only the first couple of songs leaving the rest of the album to be lifeless and limp; "Crucify the King", "I Walk Alone" et al are just terrible, terrible songs. "Minions of the Wicked", "The Revealing" and "Crown of the Fallen" contain a couple of decent riffs each but are entirely superfluous running at two minutes each; they could be combined into a full song, a good one nonetheless! Instead we're treated to wanky and trite lyrics while the riffs plod along towards their short-lived demise.

The second half of the album is completely fucking useless; there is nothing to be heard here that hasn't fucked your ears to death on their previous albums, especially the more ballad-styled songs on 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' i.e. every second song. On reflection I suppose it keeps in line with the 'trilogy' and also maintains Iced Earth's high standards of being bland and mediocre at every opportunity. I suppose that's a bit too wide-sweeping of a comment since "Divide and Devour" is actually quite decent but extremely confusing; you write a good song and sandwich it between the eternally long shitfest of noodling around that is "Come What May" and the cock-swilling, ineptly story-linked "Something Wicked (Part 3)". Despite that they manage to make the middle section of "Divide and Conquer" blow a paddock of goats by forcibly inserting that pseudo-epic choir shit in the middle and breaking the entire flow; heaven forbid playing a fucking solo or doing something good.

Iced Earth have always been a band that focuses on being epic however, so it comes as no real surprise that they enjoy long, meandering instrumental sections and multi-layered vocals. It gets to a point however where enough is enough; I swear to whatever deity is present, if I have to put up with those fucking choirs being thrown out left and right in centre during every single song I will take a sharpened toothbrush to Jon Schaffer's face, or my temple depending on how hungover I am. The epic fetish is cute in the occasional song but bands seem to continually be replacing song writing and riffs with this pseudo-epic bollocks that has no substance or value and inevitably destroys whatever quality was built up in the album. If you near constantly having booming choirs erupting during every chorus or interval then you ultimately reduce their effect and response; instead of "Oh wow this is epic" after about the third song you're going "Oh fuck not again". I guess I'm asking Iced Earth to have some restraint but really, I'm more likely to have success in herding cats or telling gold to drop the electrons and go into solution already.

So if you're dying to add yet another terribly inconsistent Iced Earth album to your collection then 'The Crucible of Man' fits the bill perfectly; two to three riffs per song, irrelevant solos, songs that over stay their visit and wagon loads of poorly implemented pseudo-epic effects. Personally I'll go have good taste in music instead.