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Iced Earth - "Something Wicked This Way Comes"

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8 months ago

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Yes, there’s still life in this blog.

Iced Earth - Something Wicked This Way Comes Going back (I reviewed The Dark Saga before) to one of my favorite metal bands (and one of my favorite bands, period), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1998) was the first Iced Earth album I ever bought, back in 1998. At the time, I knew nothing about IE, but the album cover (by Greg Capullo, the main artist on Todd McFarlane’s Spawn comic for years) intrigued me, and at the time I mostly had money to burn, so… why not?

Needless to say, I didn’t ever regret it — both for the band in general, and for that very album, the penultimate (excluding live albums, tributes and compilations) with singer Matt Barlow — that is, until the forthcoming Something Wicked pt. 2 (more on that later).

Like most IE albums, SWTWC is a brilliantly written, very emotional album, with an incredible rhythm guitarist and a fantastic singer (let’s admit it, they never had a bad singer except for the first one). Lyrical themes, oweing to Jon Schaffer’s fascination with history and the dark side of religion, include the Inquisition, pedophile priests ("Father in black, black as sin / Pure hypocrisy to no end"), integrity and independence of thought, a dedication to a friend of Schaffer’s who died in an accident, and a heartfelt "thank you" to the fans. But the best is yet to come…

… it’s the Something Wicked trilogy at the end of the album. A prelude to the Something Wicked pair of albums (yes, it gets a bit confusing), the three songs at the end are, quite possibly (to me, at least), the best thing Schaffer ever wrote (perhaps along with the Gettysburg trilogy a few albums later). The riffs are fast, brutal, and yet complex and perfectly played, Matt Barlow sounds better than ever, and the songwriting is pure brilliance, with middle eastern influences (more pronouned in the later re-recording in the Overture of the Wicked EP, though I prefer the original versions here). The lyrics themselves tell the beginning of a story lasting 10.000 years, which Schaffer had obviously put a lot of thought into, even at the time (years before the Framing Armageddon - Something Wicked pt. 1 album).

If you like epic, dark, emotional metal at all, buy this. Really. It’s Iced Earth at their best (while I still love the more recent albums, and I intend to review them here in the future, I think that the songwriting has lost some complexity and intensity, which this album from 10 years ago had in spades.)

Bruce Dickinson - "Accident of Birth"

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Pedro Timóteo

1 year, 10 months ago

in 90s music and Heavy Metal

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First, sorry for the longish delay in posting. With that out of the way…

This album, which I’m listening to right now (I’ve never mentioned it before, but all of these posts are written while listening to the album in question, and the present case is no exception), you may be surprised to know, isn’t my favorite album with Bruce Dickinson (here, counting the Iron Maiden ones). It isn’t even my favorite Bruce Dickinson solo album (I’d say The Chemical Wedding is even better). It is, however, simply damn good.

A bit of history: in 1997, when this album was released, Bruce had left Maiden, which had gone on with Blaze Bayley, and its latest albums weren’t very well received. At the time, most people blamed Blaze, though, in my opinion, when he left and Dickinson came back, they went on making exactly the same kind of music as in The X-Factor and Virtual XI. I still like the new Maiden, but their newer albums sound too similar and “muddy” to me. The Number of the Beast, they aren’t.

Meanwhile, Bruce released a couple of strange albums, which, although they had some great songs here and there, revealed a guy who was trying as hard as he could to prove (perhaps most of all to himself?) that he wasn’t “just about metal”. Yes, it’s exactly what Rob Halford did after he left Priest.

Accident of Birth is when Bruce Dickinson stopped pretending to be something he wasn’t. (Hmm, much like Halford’s Resurrection…). When he admitted that, after all, he did love metal, soaring voices, screaming guitars, pounding drums, and all that.

And he joined with two brilliant guitarists: Roy Z (hey, he produced Halford’s Resurrection as well… is this a conspiracy? :)), and Adrian Smith, formerly (and, now, again) of Maiden. The result is this masterpiece.

This is what Maiden would sound like now, if they hadn’t stopped growing musically around 1988. If they still had the passion they had on their first albums. If the albums’ production didn’t drown the vocals like it does (compare Bruce’s voice here to Brave New World, for instance… it almost sounds like a different guy). If Maiden wasn’t an establishment like it is. (Don’t get me wrong, I still love Maiden and buy all their new albums; it’s still great music, but something is gone, IMO.)

The album itself is fantastic. No song begs “skip me”. Nowhere is Bruce’s voice less than perfect, less than passionate, emotional, powerful. Both music and lyrics are brilliant (to be topped only by The Chemical Wedding, in my opinion). This is pure metal without gimmicks: not black, not death, not power, not (yuck) nu. Just metal. What Maiden should be now, and aren’t (even with Dickinson back).

Listen to it as a piece of perfection, and as evidence of what a man can do when he stops trying to run away from himself.

Death - "The Sound of Perseverance"

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 7 months ago

in 90s music and Heavy Metal

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If you’re a real metal fan, few events were sadder than the death of Chuck Shuldiner in 2001. The singer, guitarist and main songwriter of Death, he is responsible, among others, for 1998’s The Sound of Perseverance, an album I bought that year, and which I simply can’t get tired of. An album that has helped me through some pretty bad times in my life, too - its themes, lyrics, intensity and sheer passion have a way of doing that.

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Blind Guardian - "Nightfall in Middle-Earth"

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 8 months ago

in 90s music and Heavy Metal

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If you know me in person, it’s quite likely that you’ve hear me rave about this album at least once. If you don’t… tough, unless you stop reading NOW, you’re going to suffer the same fate.

I love heavy metal, as any reader of this blog will probably have figured out by now. I also love epic stuff. And I love Tolkien’s books, especially “Lord of the Rings”… and “The Silmarillion” (which was edited by his son, from Tolkien’s notes). Blind Guardian’s 1998 album, “Nightfall in Middle-Earth”, is all of those put together… and the result is a masterpiece that both metal fans and Tolkien fans should worship.

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Black Sabbath - "Dehumanizer"

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 8 months ago

in 90s music and Heavy Metal

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Those who know me from somewhere are, surely, aware that I have used, on the Net, the alias “Dehumanizer” for some years now. Ever wondered why?

It’s because of this 1992 album, from Black Sabbath.

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Virgin Steele - "Invictus"

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 8 months ago

in 90s music and Heavy Metal

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In 1998, on a mailing list, I heard about a band, Virgin Steele, and an album, “Invictus”, which was supposed to be very good. “Fine,” I thought, “let’s hear it”.

Years later, I have all of Virgin Steele’s discography, it’s one of my favorite bands, and David DeFeis is, in my opinion, one of the best singers out there - certainly my favorite among the 10 in “Avantasia”. Initially, I thought VS sounded like Manowar… but they’re different, very different. Much more epic, with huge classical influences, and with a lot more keyboards, too. Oh, and thoughtful lyrics, some concept albums, and a passion for Greek mythology. What’s not to love?

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Iced Earth - "The Dark Saga"

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 9 months ago

in 90s music and Heavy Metal

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I love heavy metal. I also love comic books. Yet, in this case, I didn’t buy the album because of the comic; much the opposite, I was intrigued by the comic (Todd McFarlane’s “Spawn”), and bought most of it, because of this album.

1996’s “The Dark Saga”, may or may not be Iced Earth’s best album, but, to me, it’s the most emotional one. They take a comic book which, while good, has its ups and downs, and interpret it in their own way, re-telling parts of the story with music, creating images from sound. If you know the comic, you won’t be able to avoid remembering it, seeing it in your mind, as you listen to this album.