Writing and Recording
Musically, Something Wicked This Way Comes is significantly heavier than its predecessor The Dark Saga. According to Jon Schaffer, because many of Iced Earth's fans felt that The Dark Saga lacked in speed and heaviness, the band tried to have a more diverse collection of songs on Something Wicked This Way Comes.
The album is also notable for being the first to feature Jon Schaffer's Something Wicked Saga. Originally Schaffer had planned to have the entire record be a concept album on the "Something Wicked" storyline, but because some songs unrelated to the concept, had already been written following The Dark Saga, the band decided to only have the last three tracks be connected to the storyline. The last three songs ("Prophecy", Birth of the Wicked" and "The Coming Curse") make up, what is commonly referred to, as the "Something Wicked" trilogy, which introduces the central figure of the saga, Set Abominae (who also appears on the album's front cover).
Even though some material had already been written prior to the actual writing process, Schaffer has admitted that he struggled writing the remaining songs, attributing these problems to growing stress. One of the songs written right after The Dark Saga, was "Watching Over Me", which is about Schaffer's childhood friend Bill Blackmon, who died in a motorcycle accident just before Schaffer moved to Florida in 1984.
Something Wicked This Way Comes was recorded in March, 1998 at Morrisound Studios, in Tampa, Florida. It is the only Iced Earth studio album not to be co-produced by Jon Schaffer. Instead, Jim Morris (who has co-produced all of the band's albums from The Dark Saga onward) is the sole producer. Because Iced Earth no longer had a lead guitarist, nor a drummer, the band hired a number of guest musicians for the recording of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Mark Prator, who had previously played on The Dark Saga, was recruited to play the drums, while Larry Tarnowski was hired as the lead guitarist (altough some additional lead guitar parts were played by Jim Morris). Other guests featured on the album, included Howard Helm (keyboards), Roger Hughes (mandolin) and Susan McQuinn (flute), among others.
Read more about this topic: Something Wicked This Way Comes (Iced Earth Album)
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