Songs like Setian Massacre, Ten Thousand Strong, The Clouding (Second Part) and Retribution Through the Ages are all guilty of this. They all have a crushing, heavy sound, often accompanied by gallops but it slows down to have Tim Owens or Matt Barlow layered over himself 10 different times for that epic chorus. Too predictable in my book. Night of the Stormrider, Burnt Offerings, Dark Saga, Something Wicked this Way Comes, and Horror Show aren’t nearly as predictable in that nature.

Off of The Crucible of Man these songs are guilty of this: Behold the Wicked Child, Crown of the Falling, I Walk Alone, Crucify the King (a couple parts), Sacrificial King (one of my favorites though) and Something Wicked (Part 3). A couple favorites are The Dimension Gauntlet, Crucify the King, Sacrificial Kingdoms and Divide and Devour.

All in all its a good album which I enjoyed more than Framing Armageddon. I’m just saying, I would like them to play an older faster style back to the old days of Iced Earth. What I’ve been hearing since The Glorious Burden is a slower more crunching guitar feel than the old Iced Earth.

I can’t wait to hear what they do with Matt Barlow now that the Something Wicked saga is over. I give this album an 8.5