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Iced Earth - The Dark Saga



8.6 | 807 votes |
Release date: 1996
Style: Heavy metal, US power metal

Owners:

942 have it
43 want it
2 trade it


01. Dark Saga
02. I Died For You
03. Violate
04. The Hunter
05. The Last Laugh
06. Depths Of Hell
07. Vengeance Is Mine
08. The Suffering
    1 - Scarred
    2 - Slave To The Dark
    3 - A Question Of Heaven

Top 20 albums of 1996: 16

Additional info
The last three songs make up "The Suffering" trilogy.

The limited and numbered digipack version includes a cover of Judas Priest's "The Ripper" (2:42), which is also available on "The Melancholy". This album is based on the story of Todd McFarlane's Spawn comic book.

Although Dave Abell recorded all the bass tracks for this album before leaving the band, Keith Menser's picture is featured on the back cover and in the liner notes (although Abell recieves credit as the bassist). This is because Keith was intended to help the band on tour, and Century Media demanded the touring lineup on the back cover. However, Keith did not know any of the songs on the touring setlist, so he was forced to leave. James MacDonough and Brent Smedley ended up playing bass and drums, respectively, on the following two tours.

The limited and numbered Digipak was limited to 6,666 copies.

Also released on gatefold LP, limited to 2,000 copies.

Reissued by Century Media in 1998. The first standard edition has a CD painted violet. The standard reissue has a CD with a picture on it.

Staff review by
Sephiroth
Rating:
8.5
Todd Mc Farlane is a genius. He has created the best american comic of all times and his character, Spawn, has became a legend. Sadness, evilness, violence, love?.are all inside the dark stories he lives in. So, who could grasp this feelings and put it into music? Jon Schaffer obviously! And who can sing with the voice of the tormented Hellspawn, suffer with him, making us hear deep melancholy or pure evilness through the notes of his throat?? Matthew Barlow of course.

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published 18.09.2003 | Comments (11)

Guest review by
ToMegaTherion
Rating:
8.8
'The Dark Saga' is a classic metal album, and is without doubt one of Iced Earths best albums. The album is based on the comic Spawn as the concept behind the music. The album depicts the story of a man who sell's his soul to the devil for love, an irony that few seem to grasp. 'The Dark Saga' represents also the coming of age of Mat Barlow, the emotive and charismatic vocalist of Iced Earth. This is an album of class by a band who's suffered numerous changes too their line up including three vocalists. The Dark Saga was the first time Iced Earth had produced an album with the same vocalist as the previous album and it truly paid dividends for the band as a final product.

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published 01.05.2009 | Comments (2)

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Comments

Comments: 16   Visited by: 801 users
30.01.2012 - 18:50
Rating: 6
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
This shood be opening album whit Mat not Burnt Offerings, werry good powerful, exelent album whit great singing, Iced Eartish guitar riffs and also one beautiful ballad , this is when real Iced Eart era starts even 1th 3 albums was great for me us metalhead, but this is concert sell outer, when band reach HM heaven ..... a killer album
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

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01.02.2012 - 12:05
Rating: 8
Angelic Storm
Melodious
This is an album that has some truly outstanding moments. The heartfelt emotion of "I Died For You" highlighted by a wonderful, impassioned vocal from Matt, is one of the highlights, as is the melodic power metal surge of "The Hunter", and the explosive "Slave To The Dark" too. Not to mention the tragic and searing finale, "A Question Of Heaven"... I do feel as a whole, it doesn't quite stand up to their previous 2 albums which are absolute classics. But it's still a mostly great album, and I love the whole Spawn concept.
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23.04.2014 - 17:46
Rating: 7
IronArkadius666

Slave To The Dark sounds more like Iron Maiden than Iron Maiden does
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11.08.2014 - 18:49
MichaelAngeloT

Awesomenessssss
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24.09.2014 - 01:05
Rating: 9
_deepblack

Great fucking riffs ... Matt Barlows voice .. thrash and power themes ... great lyrics ... what else do you need from iced earth this is pure metal \m/
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20.02.2015 - 15:45
Rating: 6
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Written by deadone on 05.03.2014 at 04:48

Just listening to this one and it's dawned to me how much Iced Earth has changed since these days.




I agree but still its great journey, and rest until last one still are decent albums
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
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07.06.2016 - 21:00
Rating: 9
majormalfunction

The final track is sheer brilliance, a tragic epic that basically pinpoints what's so great about Spawn. The rest of the album does not reach the same level but there's many excellent tracks to find here, and just the fact that we got a metal album based on Spawn is fantastic!
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Everything's twice as bright with money in your hands
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22.07.2016 - 23:05
Rating: 7
Joppe
Steelemeister
IMO the vocals are on a higher level than the music as whole. I'd give it 6 unless Barlow didn't save this one, especially with these slow song performances of #2 and #8.
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My vision is augmented
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16.11.2016 - 14:03
Metalheart35
Account deleted
Best Iced Earth album in my opinion. Perfect melodies, perfect riffs & perfect voice. Classic for me.
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16.11.2016 - 16:40
Rating: 7
Metren
Dreadrealm
Written by Joppe on 22.07.2016 at 23:05

IMO the vocals are on a higher level than the music as whole. I'd give it 6 unless Barlow didn't save this one, especially with these slow song performances of #2 and #8.


Pretty much how I feel. I know they "simplified" their style on purpose for this one, but it only sort of worked. A couple of the songs too sort of meld into one and the songwriting isn't anywhere near as strong as Barlow's vocals. That dude's a beast, one of my all-time favorite vocalists.
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My one-man project's Bandcamp with free downloads: https://dreadrealm.bandcamp.com/
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02.03.2017 - 23:45
Rating: 8
Redel

Great album, in particular for its consistency (in a sense that almost all songs are really good). For me, it primarily lacks originality. Back at the time, it had just happened that I deeply fell in love with the album's two awesome predecessors. Came along TDS, I was a bit disappointed at first (and never overcame this first impression). Still, from today's view, no IE after TDS could ever keep up with it.
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11.01.2018 - 00:07
Rating: 8
musicalkaratekid

More straightforward but no less consistent than its predecessors as an album. I of course preferred the band's outright more ambitious take on the previous couple of albums, but the level and quality of songwriting on this effort is still excellent. The album I feel is at its creative peak with the closing trilogy, which strangely enough isn't usually the case with albums from this particular style of metal (in my opinion anyway).
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31.01.2020 - 06:38
Rating: 10
DeathMetal

Easily one of my favourite albums.
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24.03.2020 - 18:21
Rating: 6
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
A new video of former ICED EARTH vocalist Matt Barlow performing an acoustic version of the band's song "I Died For You" can be seen below. The track originally appeared on ICED EARTH's fourth album, 1996's "The Dark Saga".

Video https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/former-iced-earth-vocalist-matt-barlow-performs-acoustic-version-of-i-died-for-you-video/
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
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I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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31.08.2020 - 11:58
Rating: 8
Ellrohir
Heaven Knight
From time to time I come across a song that finds a way deep under my skin. I can't stop listening to it over and over again for some time and getting goose bumps each time I hear it.

"A Question Of Heaven" is such a song. One of the best ballads I have ever heard.

I am aware of Iced Earth for a long time, but took me long before I found this one.
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My rest seems now calm and deep
Finally I got my dead man sleep


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28.11.2021 - 11:32
Rating: 8
AndyMetalFreak
A Nice Guy
Indeed a good album, but "I Died For You" has to be one of the cheesiest metal songs of all time, but the vocals are incredibly passionate, so I will give Barlow that, there are some cool riffs in this album, but it's nothing particularly special.
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