After nearly three dedicated decades, Schaffer, drummer Brent Smedley, vocalist Stu Block, bassist Luke Appleton, and new guitarist Jake Dreyer have assembled the fiercest Iced Earth record since 1996 milestone The Dark Saga and 1998’s chart-blazer Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Titled ‘Incorruptible’, Iced Earth’s 12th record is inspired not by things political but by things personal. Since Plagues of Babylon landed in 2014 to heaps of praise and chart-topping success, Schaffer and team have weathered proverbial storms. Management shake-ups, Schaffer’s well-publicized and very serious neck surgery—he’s since fully recovered—and lineup shifts all played positively into Incorruptible. But that wasn’t always the case.

Written primarily by Schaffer over the course of several months — a process he calls “typical”— Incorruptible finds Iced Earth pivoting off everything they’ve learned—going all the way back to 1990’s Iced Earth—to come away with an album that feels and sounds superlatively heavy metal. And definitely like Iced Earth.