Iced Earth-The Crucible of man: Something wicked part 2

SPV
2008

No strangers to line-up changes, Iced Earth now bring back vocalist Matt Barlow to replace Tim Owens. That change alone stirred up some interest in this release and the results are pleasing enough. Nothing fancy here and not a great deal that’s unexpected, but rather it’s another good round of true to form epic style power metal. Admittedly it took me a couple of plays to really warm up to this album as a whole. I think much of it was due to the fact it does take this album a few songs to really get started. The first few tracks are largely pulled along by Barlow’s vocals and the music is decent, but perhaps more subtle than it needed to be. However, the album does pick up and once it catches fire they run with it. The music is all that you would expect with heavy, well defined chugging guitars with Jon Schaffer easily leading the way. The music is far more on the mark than the last couple of efforts plus Barlow just has the personality and chemistry with this band that Tim Owens quite honestly lacked. Here they take their time, focus in and concentrate on what made this band click in the first place and that’s why it works. Now “The Crucible of man” is more of a comfortable kind of album than it is a real barnstormer, but it’s the kind of familiar album that will have me playing it repeatedly for the next few weeks at least.

http://www.myspace.com/icedearth