The stars align and all the signs are good for Iced Earth to deliver the band's masterpiece; Matthew Barlow is back in the band and the 'Something Wicked' epic comes to a conclusion, but something went a bit wrong in the cosmic universe...

'The Crucible of Man' is not the expected pinnacle of Iced Earth's career so far, what many had hoped for to be the zenith has turned out to be a good Iced Earth album in the sense that 'Horror Show', 'Night of the Stormrider' and 'Burnt Offerings' are good albums. But the second part of the epic story about the Setians does never reach the level of such brilliant power metal albums like: 'The Dark Saga', 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', 'The Glorious Burden' or 'Framing Armageddon (Something Wicked, Part 1). I rate it somewhere in the area after these albums...

But Jon Schaffer and Iced Earth have never released a bad album, and the riff-master proves once more that he belongs in a league of his own, and the riff attack delivered this time is still way ahead of 99% of the competition.

Matthew Barlow sings up to his very best, the production is powerful and straight in your face, so where does it go wrong... well to me it's mainly in the harmonies, both guitar and vocal, which are not quite as strong and catchy as we are used to, and I do miss some aggression and power in some of the songs, as well as the will to take a few chances, it do get a little too predictable and repetitive in the long run.

Do I feel a bit let down? You bet! Is this still a power metal album worth picking up? Ohh yeah! Because Jon Schaffer and Matthew Barlow is a match made in power metal heaven, and together they do still form one of the strongest units in power metal. If this had been their debut album I would have been head over heels over it, but they do have such a strong back catalogue than it does fall a bit short compared to their best efforts...