Metal Reviews

I don't know why but I really don't like that album anymore, which is a bit strange. Pyramaze has been one of my favourite bands since I heard Legend Of The Bone Carver. Lance King did a terrific job on those albums and perhaps I'm still not 100% used to hearing Barlow in this band. I mean, I loved the two songs they gave to us before the album was out ("Caramon's Poem" and "Year Of The Phoenix") but now it doesn't click with me anymore. The touch Lance put on those songs was was just amazing and still is. Barlow is just as good a vocalist though but I can't seem to make him fit in with Pyramaze.

I found the new Pyramaze to be quite forgettable. And this is coming from someone who loves the first two Pyramaze albums and Iced Earth. I seem to be in the minority, but other then the song "Legacy in a Rhyme", I think Barlow sounds better on Something Wicked Part 2.

Listening to FA again just today, I will say that it IS a better album than I gave it credit for. However, I still stand by my view that the song themes are just too "nerdy" for me to really get into. I like a lot of its riffs, and Tim Owens is really an amazing vocalist (it's a shame he never really managed to have his "big break"). But I really wish Schaffer would've made the songs just a little more relatable to the average listener, rather than telling such an esoteric story. This is also my problem with Nightfall On Middle Earth.

I guess, if it were possible, I'd change my vote to "Hit" (I'll pick up Crucible Of Man next month-ish). However, that doesn't save it from being IMO the band's weakest album since Burnt Offerings.

A miss by their standards, but viewing it in light of the entire metalscene they're clearly hits. So when not judging the albums by my fanboyish standards, I'll have to vote hit.


Burnt Offerings is prolly their best album by the way..

I gotta ask, doe sthe original "Something Wicked" have anything to do with their last two albums? This question has always bugged me. Is it p-art 3? is it the "real" part one? nothing at to do with it?

Help a motherfucker out.

I haven't heard any of it by the way, it's on the very long list of albums to persue.

The Something Wicked trilogy (Prophecy, Birth of the Wicked, The Coming Curse) at the end of Something Wicked This Way Comes basically summarizes the main plot of the two concept albums and melodies from the trilogy is used throughout the double album.

Okay. So he basically just redid a 3-song epic and turned it into a double album. Kind of like if Dream Theater put out a new album called metropolis, pt. 1: the miracle and the sleeper to go along with pt. 2. scenes from a memory

Huh?

It's a trilogy because it's tied together by a common backstory. I don't remember any melodies on the last 2 albums lifted directly from the original song trilogy (no more than any other Iced Earth album sounds the same anyhow).

There are actually. Just listen to the end of the Dimension Gauntlet. Same melody as in The Coming Curse I reckon. I think there are more examples but I can't recall them right now.

I listened to the end of Dimension Gauntlet and the unique melodies from Coming Curse back and forth many times.

Opening melody - not the same
Melody which starts at 1:27 - somewhat similiar structure .. lets say 25% the same?
Melody which starts at 2:56 - not the same
melody which starts at 3:27 - not the same
melody which starts at 4:04 - not the same
melody which starts at 4:25 - not the same
melody which starts at 5:11 - not the same
melody which starts at 5:46 - not the same

no more unique melodies for rest of song

So I can't say it's the same, or even sameish. It's not even as samey as classical theme and variation.

Burnt Offerings is weak?

It's their last decent album.

I didn't say Burnt Offerings is a weak album on the whole. I just think it's their weakest until FA. Actually, I listened to BO just a couple weeks ago.

Compare the melody starting 2:02 into Dimension Gauntlet with the melody starting at 7:52 in The Coming Curse. You don't think they're at the least similar?

You are quite right, they are exactly the same. Never noticed that one before.

As the melody is not central to The Coming Curse (rather it's a subdued overlay on an outro), I still wouldn't describe the last two albums as "So he basically just redid a 3-song epic and turned it into a double album". I'd call it "sprinkled with subtle thematic tie-ins"

Me neither, I wouldn't agree with that description at all. Jon has however reused some melodies to tie the theme together, as you said.

Aside from that there's no real similarity between the original song trilogy and the two concept albums, except for the concept of course. The music is quite different to me, even though I know many would disagree and argue that Jon has made the same record since Dark Saga.

Total miss for me.IE have always had plenty of filler on their albums[aside from stormrider,which IMO is their best album by far and solid throughout]but also had enough killer songs to make up for the filler,but I just can't get into these two albums at all.I just find them both painfully average[at best] and would rather just listen to the trilogy on SWTWC.