Iced Earth have apparently finished recording their new album Plagues of Babylon, which is weird because I could swear I was just talking about them writing it in early July. It also sounds like it's going to be amazing.
So about the album, I'll leave it up to what Jon Schaffer told Metal4 magazine:
It's a bit of a different thing for us, because it's half of a concept and the other half is [standalone] tracks. Musically, I think it's just another step in the right direction. It's really heavy, it's very melodic. It has a really epic feeling. Even though there isn't, like, a monster, long epic track, the overall feel of the songs is very epic. I mean, there's no "Dante's Inferno" or "Gettysburg" or the "Something Wicked" trilogy or something like that on here, but I'm really happy with it.
I'm pretty interested i what they're going to be doing for the half-concept portion of the record in terms of track flow. Will it be a story or will the tracks just flow into each other like a sort of "epic" without the lengthy track? Regardless should be interesting! Especially since it'll be another Stu Block vocal venture, and that man is simply not human. This will also be the first album with new drummer Raphael Saini of Chaoswave, who replaces the band's former drummer Brent Smedley.
The album will begin the mixing process on Monday, August 12. The record will see a release "sometime in January 2014" on Century Media Records!
