On June 5th, ICED EARTH return to action and set the stage for their upcoming double-album epic. The Overture Of The Wicked EP features the brand new, hard-hitting track “Ten Thousand Strong” along with a special 2007 version of the Something Wicked trilogy (originally appearing as the closing to 1998’s classic Something Wicked This Way Comes album.) This release is the prelude to the full-length album, Framing Armageddon (Something Wicked Part 1), coming this fall. Led as always by guitarist/composer Jon Schaffer and featuring the soaring vocal mastery of Tim Owens, ICED EARTH returns stronger than ever and are about to embark on the most ambitious journey of their career. Schaffer explains: “The Something Wicked trilogy (comprised of the songs “Prophecy”, “Birth of the Wicked”, and “The Coming Curse”) has been completely rerecorded. From the ground up this is a more vicious and more atmospheric version of the epic piece. All of the vocals have been redone, obviously by Tim Owens, who did a masterful job at retaining the passion and honesty of the original, and still put his stamp on it and made it his own. We also put in some teaser atmospheric things that will give you a hint of things to come on Part 1. But just a hint…we don’t want to spoil any surprises.” “For those of you that aren’t familiar with the old version or the Something Wicked story at all, you should check it out. The original trilogy is just an overview of the story that begins 12,000 years ago and leads us to modern day. You should look at the trilogy as an introduction to this whole epic. What is coming next in the two parts is a far more in depth look into this very tragic, heavy and apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy story.” A full tour of North America is in the planning stages. More details will be available soon.