01. Burning Times 02. Melancholy (Holy Martyr) 03. Disciples Of The Lie 04. Watching Over Me 05. Stand Alone 06. Consequences 07. My Own Savior 08. Reaping Stone 09. 1776 10. Blessed Are You 11. Prophecy 12. Birth Of The Wicked 13. The Coming Curse 14. Shooting Star [Bad Company cover][re-issue bonus] 15. Electric Funeral [Black Sabbath cover][re-issue bonus] 16. The Ripper [Judas Priest cover][re-issue bonus]
The biography of the American band Iced Earth suffered from too may line-up changes over the years, so, basically the only original member, founder and leader Jon Schaffer IS Iced Earth. Ok, that was the line-up! No just kidding, well Matt Barlow was still there with his master voice, Larry Tarnowski was around to handle the lead guitar parts and James McDonough was the current bass player. Concerning the drummer, Brent Smedley, he is on the picture of the band in the booklet but I'm almost sure that he didn't played on that album as Mark Prator did. Smedley would be the drummer on the Alive in Athens CD but that's another story. So what was I saying? Yes, complicated lineup, especially if you add that their producer Jim Morris played some guitar parts and that since, Tarnowski has been fired, Barlow quit the band for personal reasons, I have no idea what happened to Brent Smedley but despite his amazing performance on stage, he's not anymore part of Iced Earth and finally James McDonough is still the official bass player but Iced Earth released two albums without his services... Nevertheless, the core of the band at that time, meaning the trio Schaffer-Barlow-Tarnowski worked perfectly as we will discuss later.
This has to be one of the most enjoyable, and uplifting album's i've heard, the songwriting ain't exactly Iron Maiden standards but I still like it alot, especially the songs "Burning Times" and "1776" with those great catchy riffs, I've even warmed to "Watching Over Me", even though it has one of the cheesiest choruses i've ever heard, but damn it's catchy! "Melancholy" is a nice ballad too.
Good songs and fillers. Tracks 11-13 are great though, the band should cut the bullshit songs and make more like these IMO.
I agree. This is the second album I've heard from Iced Earth (after Burnt Offerings). As someone else already mentioned on this thread, the switching back and forth between fast and slow songs really lacks any flow and the songs feel just jumbled together.
In addition, the faster songs are sooo much better (in my opinion) than the slow songs. Songs like "Melancholy", "Watching Over Me", and "Blessed Are You" are nice on their own, but they don't compare to the heavy, badass songs on here like "Burning Times" or "Stand Alone".
The slow songs are really skippable and in fact I would've prefered a shortened album such as this:
1. Burning Times
2. Stand Alone
3. My Own Saviour
4. Reaping Stone
5. 1776
6. Something Wicked: Prophecy
7. Something Wicked: Birth of the Wicked
8. Something Wicked: The Coming Curse
This tracklist would've been able to compete with the great heaviness of Burnt Offerings!
Some highlights here are the fantastic instrumental "1776" and the 3-part epic "Something Wicked", which creates an eerie atmosphere of the coming of the Antichrist as revenge for Mankind supplanting an ancient race long ago... the last song is the definition of epic with a beautiful piano intro followed by a stampede of riffs and Barlow's phenomenal voice
Overall, a collection of some great songs and some average ones. Will be revisiting this album a lot, but skipping those filler songs
Good songs and fillers. Tracks 11-13 are great though, the band should cut the bullshit songs and make more like these IMO.
I agree. This is the second album I've heard from Iced Earth (after Burnt Offerings). As someone else already mentioned on this thread, the switching back and forth between fast and slow songs really lacks any flow and the songs feel just jumbled together.
In addition, the faster songs are sooo much better (in my opinion) than the slow songs. Songs like "Melancholy", "Watching Over Me", and "Blessed Are You" are nice on their own, but they don't compare to the heavy, badass songs on here like "Burning Times" or "Stand Alone".
The slow songs are really skippable and in fact I would've prefered a shortened album such as this:
1. Burning Times
2. Stand Alone
3. My Own Saviour
4. Reaping Stone
5. 1776
6. Something Wicked: Prophecy
7. Something Wicked: Birth of the Wicked
8. Something Wicked: The Coming Curse
This tracklist would've been able to compete with the great heaviness of Burnt Offerings!
Some highlights here are the fantastic instrumental "1776" and the 3-part epic "Something Wicked", which creates an eerie atmosphere of the coming of the Antichrist as revenge for Mankind supplanting an ancient race long ago... the last song is the definition of epic with a beautiful piano intro followed by a stampede of riffs and Barlow's phenomenal voice
Overall, a collection of some great songs and some average ones. Will be revisiting this album a lot, but skipping those filler songs
I wouldn't necessarily call the slow songs worse. I actually prefer Watching Over Me and Consequences, for instance, to some of the faster songs, because of better utilization of Barlow's voice. It's true that the musical direction shifting between the thrashier songs and the more commercial sounding semi ballads sounds like some kind of confusion in the songwriting and seems like sort of an identity crisis in the band or Schaffer -- if he wrote all these songs. And I think that listening the Something Wicked trilogy exposes the weakness in songwriting in many of the other songs. I can't really offer any solution in how the album would be better in terms of changing the song list or track order -- this looks like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation -- but I agree that it most likely would be better if it was shorter. At the end of the day, the album is just not so great
Sure there are some songs that probably should have been left out IMO but most of the stuff here is strong. Powerful production as well. The Something Wicked trilogy is without a doubt the highlight but Burning Times is a great opener and I really like Watching Over Me.
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