Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Iced Earth
Label: Century Media
Released: 2017
Runtime: 54:40
Rating: 4/5
Finally, someone who can’t be bought. Well, judging by the title of their new album, anyway. »Incorruptible« is exactly what everyone was quietly expecting from the long-running American power metal veterans Iced Earth. Album number twelve. Enviable. And the third with Stu Block on lead vocals. Block delivers the most confident vocal performance on this record. It’s that wonderfully successful blend of the best of what his predecessors Tim »Ripper« Owens and Matt Barlow served up during their years with Iced Earth. Stu is superb again. He doesn’t try to imitate either of the two famous predecessors. His approach actually stays pleasantly close to Barlow throughout, with the occasional nod to Ripper’s piercing highs, while still honoring the continuity of those specific moods and atmospheres that have been the band’s trademark in every era. And the new album is no exception.
On the new album the band once again flirts heavily with its late-nineties era, when they recorded and released the unforgettable »The Dark Saga« and »Something Wicked This Way Comes«. Those tricks were easy to spot on »Dystopia« too, and on its less inspired but still perfectly solid successor »Plagues of Babylon«. Schaffer did hint at this in earlier interviews. Truth be told, even if he hadn’t, it was something you’d expect from the band’s chieftain anyway. So »Incorruptible« holds no surprises. If the epic, bombastic opening charge Great Heathen Army (a hymn to Viking heroism) doesn’t remind you of that flirtation with the older Iced Earth albums, the »self-plagiarism« in Raven Wing will, as it owes a bit of its inspiration to songs like Ghost of Freedom, I Died For You or even Melancholy. The atmosphere built on this ultra-melodic power metal ballad, which will very likely find a spot in the setlists of the band’s upcoming tours, carries over into The Veil right after it. That calmer stretch of the album wraps up, and the band hits back with one of the most deliciously pissed-off metal marches of tearing, relentless depravity, called Seven Headed Whore.
The musicality is infectious again. The album is packed with bombast, pomp and epic sweep, and a good dose of mysticism too. Some passages could have been trimmed, but Schaffer would rather bet on building a drama-theater vibe, which now and then clips the wings of the song’s biting punch. At the same time, the album is suitably dark and doomed. Tragedies follow one another at every step. It loses some creative charge with the predictable and slightly dull Brothers and, right after it, Defiance, but those are the only two such moments. Lyrically, the album once again sings of brotherhood and all the other brave deeds of heroes. It also draws plenty of inspiration from historical themes and rituals, from the American Civil War (the nearly ten-minute closing mini-epic metal suite Clear the Way) to Caribbean pirates (the »spiked« Back Flag), and it doesn’t skip the spiritual rituals of the first North American settlers either (the excellent instrumental Ghost Dance).
All in all, though, the new album is the most heterogeneous one since “Horror Show”. That means, in terms of expression (all the ideas thrown in), it’s the most balanced thing Iced Earth have managed to cook up in the last 16 years. It actually evokes the golden nineties very pleasantly, an era that will never come back, and nobody is asking that of Iced Earth, since it’s neither possible nor realistic, while also picking up the better moments of the band’s 2004-2008 era, when Iced Earth somewhat lost their compositional compass. The closing mini-epic suite Clear the Way gives off that feeling especially well. It serves up a nicely judged balance of those moments, which one minute recall the pre-Glorius Burden era and the next that very album from 2004.
Even though Iced Earth bring nothing new or unheard-of with this album, it’s a very high-quality effort, refreshingly different from both predecessors (on which Stu Block had already lent Schaffer his vocal services) and one that hardly anyone would have complained about much had it come out right after »Horror Show« (2001), or even right after »Something Wicked This Way Comes« (1998).
There’s one more important thing to mention here: the arrival of a new guitarist. Jack Dreyer, who joined Schaffer’s crew from White Wizzard, is a devilishly good guitarist. Hungry to prove himself and full of work ethic. Schaffer badly needed that kind of refresh. With his very first outing Dreyer earned enough creative freedom and room to expertly polish some instrumental passages with brilliant guitar solos, proving that the kid is a true virtuoso whose time is only just coming. Newcomer or not, Dreyer played an important part in refreshing the songwriting on the new album.
So. »Incorruptible« is yet another very good studio effort from this long-lived band. Nothing more. But very good. The band shows no evolutionary creative progress. Still, it’s seasoned from head to toe with all the right trademarks that have always defined the music of Iced Earth (the harmonies in thirds are here in abundance again, too). It delivers a bundle of songs that make for a nicely varied, heterogeneous album. That said, it’s not a good idea to compare it too closely with the classic Iced Earth albums, or you may fall into the trap and end up spinning only records released between 1990 and 2001 again. This quality new effort called »Incorruptible« deserves a bit more of your attention and a solid run in your CD players. The new material confidently »ties in« with the classic stuff, and that’s how it’ll work at the band’s new live shows too. And that happens very soon, when we meet Iced Earth again at this year’s edition of the Metaldays festival.
Iced Earth – Seven Headed Whore (official lyric video):
Lineup
Stu Block – vocals
Jon Schaffer – guitar, vocals
Jack Dreyer – guitar
Luke Appleton – bass
Brent Smedley – drums
Production
Jon Schaffer
Tracklist
01. Great Heathen Army (5:21)
02. Black Flag (4:56)
03. Raven Wing (6:25)
04. The Veil (4:47)
05. Seven Headed Whore (3:00)
06. The Relic (Part 1) (4:59)
07. Ghost Dance (Awaken The Ancestors) (6:35)
08. Brothers (4:45)
09. Defiance (4:08)
10. Clear The Way (December 13th, 1862) (9:30)
