"Infernal machines arise -- flesh and steel collide!"
Sometimes bands just seem to do everything right. Symphony X is basically a band like that. Iconoclast is a brilliant prog-metal album. First of all, the band sounds tighter than ever and the production is really heavy. Really METAL. It's sonically very similar to the previous release, Paradise Lost, which was so good it was hard to imagine Iconoclast equaling its quality, much less exceeding it. Yet that's what happened.
You know when bands suddenly gets 'heavier' on an album or two, and the heavier albums are the best albums? Yeah, this is like that. Iconoclast maintains the pumped-up heaviness of the previous release, which is good if you crave the true power of metal. I do not believe its coincidental that the last two albums have been crushingly heavy and at the upper level of Symphony X quality. However, the band retains its knack for amazing vocals, melodic hooks, and songwriting that closes on your skull like a bear trap snapping shut, so the heaviness does not suppress any other important features. Not to mention there are some downright rippin' prog-metal breakdowns, face-melting solos, and a big, epic, "Rise of the Machines" kind of theme. It's almost like "Church of the Machine" being extended to a full concept! There's an absolutely brilliant 'power ballad', "When All Is Lost", which is probably their best. And that's saying a lot when you think of crazy songs that might be in that category, such as "Candlelight Fantasia," "Lady of the Snow", "Awakenings", "Paradise Lost", even "Edge of Forever" maybe... anyway.
You know, a lot of the album sounds kinda 'the same' at first, and it's long which doesn't help that initial impression (two-disc version is mandatory, if you get the one-disc set you are stupid). But that is only at first, because give it some attention and the music reveals all the brilliant layers that make awesome prog-metal so tasty (especially with this emphasis on METAL and great hooks). I've listened to this to death since it was released and it fills me with joy. This is probably Symphony X's most perfect album so everything else they release after this is just gravy. Well maybe the last song could have been a wee bit more epic and huge but it's still excellent, so oh well. And one final comments, even after all these years there are still reviews that say Symphony X has "stupid" or "bad" lyrics, but come on, what do you expect, Edgar Allan Poe? It's a metal band, writing about (in this case) evil machine empires (or something). The lyrics are actually AWESOME for what they are meant to accomplish.
