Jon Schaffer is back! After his son was born in 2005, he took a vacation and the musicians in Iced Earth found other things to do. The only one left from the previous album is vocalist Tim Owens. There were lots of problems with assembling a new team. To make the long story short, the lead guitar is in the hands of Troy Seele now, the bass is given to Dennis Hayes (Winters Bane), and on the drums is Brent Smedley, known from his participation in "Days of Purgatory" and "Alive in Athens". Iced Earth's style has always been mainly power metal, but what makes the band unique is the good amount of speed/thrash in their music and of course Schaffer's distinctive guitar, backed up with melodic vocals and powerful drums. "Framing Armageddon" has all of these features, but the focus is on the power metal side. If I have to characterize the album with just one word, it would be “epic”. Jon has always loved epic songs and he has composed a lot of them, but this time it seems like he has topped himself. The CD has every ingredient from the recipe for an epic album - it is a concept one, five out of 19 songs are in just to create atmosphere (with various sound effects, choirs, etc.), joint songs, choir-like female back vocals, and of course the fact that the album is a kind of sequel to the "Something Wicked" trilogy, and finally we're awaiting it's sequel next year. The album takes off not just with an intro, but an epic "Overture" of drums and violins. The beginning of "Something Wicked (Part 1)" tries to fool us that we are listening to "The Prophecy" from "Something Wicked This Way Comes", but the song is completely new. "Invasion" consist of sound effects taking us into the atmosphere of the battle between the Elder and the humans. "Motivation of Man" is a very good, but very short song introducing... the motivation of men. "Setian Massacre" is also typical Iced Earth, relatively fast and thrashy, telling the story of the fall of the Elders' civilization. "A Charge to Keep" is one of the slower, more epic songs with choir-like back vocals. "Reflections" is the ballad, which merges with the best track on the album, "Ten Thousand Strong". Following the best Iced Earth tradition, it is fast, aggressive and has an addictive melody. A masterpiece! "Execution" is something strange, filling the place of an intro to "Order of the Rose", which is just more epics. "Cataclysm" are some sound effects with zero points for idea, and the 9-minute-long "The Clouding" is the top of all that is epic. It starts slowly, with a long instrumental part, and ends up with serious, hard power metal. "Infiltrate and Assimilate" is one of the harder and faster songs. The same goes to "Retribution Through the Ages", which however gets slower and more epic at the end. "Something Wicked (Part 2)" is a quite pleasant instrumental with drums and some acoustic strings, probably a guitar... "The Domino Decree" is the next typical Iced Earth song replacing slow with fast and aggressive moments, and "Framing Armageddon" is my other favorite - fast and hard. "When Stars Collide" is the last real song on the album and, as you may deduct, it is epic - with slow with interesting vocals. Finally "The Awakening" is some kind of a choir. I don't really understand these things, but it seems like it is epic... This CD will appeal to every fan of the band. I personally prefer the thrashy side of Iced Earth, but if acts singing about kings, swords and Templars are your cup of tea, you will probably find this album to be the best by the Americans. You will not find much of the addictive melodies from "Dark Saga", nor the aggressive and fast songs from "Burnt Offerings", but it is worth listening and has its charm.