Iced Earth's Reviews
Days of Purgatory (Average Rating: 8.64 out of 10)
Iced Earth Good (Rated this album with 10 out of 10)
Reviewed by
Kcin
from the west
This, album, as most of you should know, is a re-mastering and partial reworking of the older stuff by this band. I haven't heard the original versions of any of these songs, so I can't really say how they compare, though they are almost certainly much better here. The primary difference is the new vocals by Matt Barlow, and though I haven't heard the other singers, most people say the first one, Adams I think, really sucked, and Greely was just okay, and I know personally that Barlow is very good. He does a great job of combining both melodic singing with aggression, which is the key to being a metal vocalist. This is some of his best stuff too, right up their with his best performance, on "The Dark Saga".This material is some of Iced Earth's faster and more progressive material, particularly the stuff from "Night of the Stormrider". Though it is generally less cohesive than their other albums, since it isn't really an album, and it has perhaps less variety than the albums it is still very strong from beginning to end. Though it has a listing of 15 tracks, it really has only 11 different songs, as their are a few very short interludes, and The tracks "Angel's Holocaust" and "Stormrider" are really just 2 halves of the same song. Schaffer's riff writing is brilliant as always, and Shawver's lead guitar work is some of his best ever, particularly on "Winter Nights" and "When the Night Falls". The Drums are plaid by an assortment of people, as the have had a great many drummers over their career, but they all get the job done well, particularly the bass drums. Abell's bass is solid, though hard to distinguish too much from the guitars, as always. The only particularly weak spot is "Nightmares" and it is still okay. "Colors" is a strong opener, one of their most conventional, pounding metal songs. "Angel's Holocaust/Stormrider" is sheer brilliance, 10 minutes long with tons of tempo changes and some great vocals, particularly in the "Stormrider" part. "Pure Evil" is the next stand out track, with some great riffs and more awesome vocals. "When the Night Falls" is arguably the best song on the album, 8 minutes long, with some excellent soloing and more great vocals. "The Funeral" is a very cool instrumental, with some surprisingly strong melody to it. "Cast In Stone" is great with a very good bridge and nice use of keyboards. "Travel in Stygian" is another epic, at 9 1/2 minutes, with a great chorus, and a fun, piano outro. They close with their namsake, "Iced Earth", a true classic, with stunningly dramatic singing. The only real flaw with this album is the unfortunate artwork. As much as I enjoy them, I don't really care for having scantily clad women emblazoned on the things that I buy. It's also misleading, as the actual music contains no references to under-dressed vampire women. Still, this obviously doesn't matter at all, and of course has no effect on the music. All in all this is a great cd. I would rank it in the middle of the Barlow era stuff, with it being better than "Something Wicked..." and "Horror Show", but worse than "The Dark Saga" and "Burnt Offering". Still, all of them are definitely worth owning, so go buy them all.
Buy this album on Amazon at $14.99
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