Good evening! The Meista here rocking the hell out with Iced Earth's latest album "Incorruptible" and The Ox from Holy Mountain Brewing Company! Hell yeah!!
Album Info:
- Artist: Iced Earth
- Title: "Incorruptible"
- Recorded: October 2016 through February 2017 at Independence Hall
- Release date: June 16th, 2017 (12th studio album by Iced Earth)
- Record company: Century Media
- Production: Jon Schaffer
- Album cover art: David Newman-Stump from Skeleton Crew Tattoo (pencil illustrations) and Roy Young (colors)
- Personnel: Luke Appleton (bass guitar), Stu Block (lead and backing vocals), Jake Dreyer (lead guitar), Jon Schaffer (rhythm and lead guitar, acoustic guitar, and backing vocals), and Brent Smedley (drums)
- Musical style: Power metal, heavy metal
- Sound: Reminiscent of Iced Earth's 1990s heyday, "Incorruptible" is a big, bold, powerful album with lots of catchy hooks, blazing power chords, thunderous rhythms, and the intense and richly textured vocal acrobatics of Stu Block.
- Major themes: With songs about Vikings, pirates, the Battle Of Fredericksburg, Native American (among others), themes include war, valor, life and death, power, evil, corruption, etc. Of the album's lyrics, Schaffer stated: "this album, it's just ten individual songs. We have one called 'Clear The Way', which is about the Irish Brigade at the Battle Of Fredericksburg — very tragic, actually — but that's a big epic, like ten minutes; and then we have one called 'Black Flag', which is a pirate song. It's quite a… I think I pulled it off pretty well with the lyrics, to be able to tell such a big story in a very short amount of time. I think it's gonna be a highlight of the record. And then on [the last European] tour, [we opened] the show with a new song that will be the opener on the album — it's called 'Great Heathen Army' — that's got a Viking kind of a vibe to it. So there's a lot of different things, and none of it's really related. There's one called 'Raven Wing'… I can't really think of all of them right now… 'Seven Headed Whore' — that's one that's actually pretty brutal; it's like a total kick in the balls. But, you know, there's a lot of varied emotions on this, and it's cool stuff, man."
- Tracks:
- "Great Heathen Army"
- "Black Flag"
- "Raven Wing"
- "The Veil"
- "Seven Headed Whore"
- "The Relic (Part 1)"
- "Ghost Dance (Awaken The Ancestors)"
- "Brothers"
- "Defiance"
- "Clear The Way (December 13th, 1862)"
Brew Info:
- Brewery: Holy Mountain Brewing Company (Seattle, Washington)
- Website: https://holymountainbrewing.com/
- Brew: The Ox
- Style: Saison / Farmhouse Ale
- Serving: 25 ounce bottle
- ABV: 6.0%
- Ingredients: Saison brewed with orange zest and hopped with Cascade and fermented in oak and then aged for 4 months in an oak foudre with a Brettanomyces culture strain
- Pour: The Ox pours a hazy, golden-orange with a frothy and rocky 1+ finger with good sustain and lots of intricate lacing.
- Nose: The nose is fruity, citrusy, oaky, and funky. There are aromas of orange peel, lemon, lemongrass, yeast, rustic grain, hints of oak, hints of leather, and a little funk.
- Taste: The taste of The Ox yeasty, funky, tart, and slightly oaky. There are really nice and well balanced flavors of yeast phenols, lemon zest, lemon juice, orange peel, tangerine, subtle grassy hops, a hint of oak, and some nice funk.
- Mouthfeel: Light to medium-bodied and well carbonated, the mouthfeel is very crisp, refreshing, and tart with a dry, slightly tart finish.
Overall pairing: The crisp, tart, well-balanced and very drinkable flavors of Holy Mountain's fantastic The Ox is a great beer for not only a hot summer day, but for the power, might, and intensity of Iced Earth's brilliant new album "Incorruptible"! The crispness of the brew is great for the dual guitar precision of Dreyer and Schaffer, while the rustic and oak notes work really well with the powerful rhythm section of Appleton and Smedley, and it is all tied together by Block's amazing vocal prowess!
Cheers!! Hails!!
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