Sjak: We have had to wait for it a little while, but in the shape of ‘The Crucible Of Man’ the second part of the ‘Something Wicked’-sage is a fact. Biggest difference with the first part ‘Framing Armageddon’ is of course that ex-Judas Priest shouter Tim “Ripper” Owens is no longer there and his replacement is none other that Matt Barlow, in my opinion the vocalist who was certainly responsible for the shaping of this band and who vocal style fits best with Iced Earth. The long hair of mister Barlow may be gone, but judging by his performance on this ‘The Crucible Of Man’ his awesome voice didn’t suffer at all from that, become he’s stronger than ever.
A few months ago we already had the pleasure of getting an appetizer of this renewed collaboration by means of the mini-CD ‘I Walk Among You’ and that was a pretty convincing effort I must say. The same can be said about this new full-length release, because also here all typical Iced Earth ingredients are present. Mastermind Jon Schaffer has succeeded in writing another bunch of great songs, in which the tight riffs are the dominating factor and which show lots of variety at times. I won’t go through all the fifteen songs on offer here, but tracks like ‘Behold The Wicked Child’, ‘Minions Of The Watch’ and the varied ‘A Gift Or A Curse’ give you a pretty good idea on what to expect. With the re-establishment of Matt Barlow Iced Earth again sounds like it used to do and I think that with him back on board the status of the band can be lifted again. Once more I’m a happy man…
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