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Overture of the Wicked features one new song and three new versions of the Something Wicked trilogy that originally appeared on the Something Wicked This Way Comes album.
New song Ten Thousand Strong is a masterpiece and easily the best song on Overture of the Wicked and in my opinion one of the best from Tim Owens time as Iced Earth’s lead singer. His vocals on this send shivers down my spine. I really can’t believe how long he holds the final notes in the last chorus. Jon Schaffer plays some great riffs too. The only fault here is that there is no guitar solo and while good without, a solo would have made this song even better.
As for the new version of the Something Wicked Trilogy, in short Prophecy, Birth of the Wicked and The Coming Curse with Tim Owens is not as good as they were with Matt Barlow on the originals. There are many faults in these new versions and they make the new versions range from ‘as good as’ to ‘decidedly weaker’ tags.
The first fault is that in some cases Tim’s voice, although good, does not suit some of the sections that Matt Barlow as able to make great. As it is he manages an acceptable job of the whole thing, sounding best in Birth of the Wicked.
The second fault is the guitar sound doesn’t sound as good as on the original. The Matt Barlow versions had a darker sounding tone to them that fitted the mood much better than on the new versions.
The final and most major of the faults applies only to The Coming Curse. Iced Earth committed utter blasphemy by choosing to remove the piano intro that the original had. This section made the Matt Barlow version of The Coming Curse into the gem of Something Wicked This Way Comes, as it provided a nice break between the heavy section of Birth of the Wicked and the main song of The Coming Curse. The song just doesn’t seem right without it. This coupled with Owens’s weakest vocal performance of the CD makes for a very disappointing end of Overture of the Wicked.
I’d recommend this to die-hard fans of Iced Earth or Tim Owens only, as there is not much material on offer here and you can get Ten Thousand Strong on Framing Armageddon anyway so that in itself is a reason not to buy this. The question here is, “are you a big enough fan to want alternate versions of the Something Wicked Trilogy?”
The above review was actually written quite a while ago but never got posted anywhere, it was originally written sometime in 2008 I believe. Not sure if Matt Barlow was back in the band when this was written but now, in a way, this EP is kind of redundant. It’s intention was to add continuity between the original Something Wicked Trilogy and the more recent two part concept album, Framing Armageddon and The Crucible of Man, which were to feature Tim Owens up front on both releases. Then they went and brought Matt Barlow back half way through it, rendering the intent behind Overture of the Wicked, as I said, redundant. I’m going to stick by my original score however since I’m rating for the music, but I thought that this would be an interesting fact to point out.
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)