Framing Armageddon: Something Wicked Part 1

I wanted to like this one. I really did. I enjoyed the Glorious Burden, and there are a few songs from their older material that I really love, but this one just wasn't working for me. I kept playing it and I kept coming back to it thinking maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it or something, but in the end I'm afraid this just isn't a very good album. I understand that the nature of the subject matter was being represented with the heavier music, but in the end I don't care about an accurate mood, I care about good songs and after playing this cd a number of times, I'm just not finding them here. I'm not exactly sure where to put the blame for that. The writing is all Schaffer of course, but I don't know how much direction he gave the others in their performances. Some of the music is good, but other parts are just too choppy and disjointed with the drums trying to play the guitar parts instead of working with the bass to create a rhythm section. But despite all of that, the bigger problem is the singing. It's just too much. It's over the top. It has sort of a ridiculous King Diamond thing going. The back-up vocals are all horrible and overdone. The shrill falsetto harmony is over used and frankly it just becomes annoying instead of being used as an accent. He really just sounds like he's forcing everything and it ends up sounding like a parody of a metal band. If this is Part 1, I don't think I want to hear Part 2. --Scott