(Rated this album with 6 out of 10) Reviewed by
Sergio F. Morales
from Levittown, NY United States
Now, this being the only Iced Earth record I own, I don't have much to compare it to. It sounds to me like good old school progressive metal. A lot of the songs on this one will take you back to the days of old school prog metal/rock bands like Rush or Iron Maiden, but with more of a fantasy type direction, just not a full-on Blind Guardian type direction. Most of this album sounds raw, but not punk raw. It's true heavy metal type raw. This sound is mostly due to the production, though. The album kicks off well and stays very well from tracks 1-9. I like how the album seems to go from fast hard songs to a more ballad type and switches off like this mostly throughout the whole record. Most especially the track 9 instrumental "1776," which alone warrents the purchase of this album, and is undoubtably one of the greatest metal instrumentals of all time! After track 9 though is where I feel the album starts to slip a bit. Track 10 is good, but feels somewhat too simplistic. I can listen to it, but not everytime, just once in a while. Tracks 11 and 12 didn't really get me off my feet either. I tend to skip these. Track 13 is where the album picks up again though, and even though the song as a whole would probably be a 3out of 5, there are some great moments in it; like the nice piano into and the chorus chanting in the middle and end of the song. This is the only song which has a fantasy type sound to the likes of Blind Guardian. Now usually, if I was to enjoy about 3 quarters of a record, I usually would give it 4 stars, but the only reason I went a step down with this one is its simplicity in guitar playing. I'm not saying these guys can't play, sure they are much better musicians than most of the idiot nu metal bands plaguing the airwaves. Still, after hearing such great guitar work from bands like Symphony X, Blind Guardian and Opeth, these guys would rank bottom. Impressive solo's are seldom, and most songs consist of easy power chords. Most of the acoustic ballads also consist only of easy bar chords (nowhere near the genius of Opeth acoustics). Now, don't let this deter you, even though the guitar work itself is rather simplistic as a whole, the songs themselves are still very good. Hell, Metallica's guitar work isn't very impressive (sure Kirk Hammet can rip on solo's), most of their stuff consists of easy power chords, too, just more thrash like - but still, the songs themselves were great. I definitely recommend a purchase if you want to get into these guys, but I'd suggest giving more than 1 spin on the cd player before you judge it. If you're into old school stuff, you'll probably love it.
