ENTER NOW....AND VIOLATE!!!!

I love concept albums! Usually when I first listen to them I pull out the liner notes and read along... but not this one... I held off listening to this album until I got familiar with the SPAWN storyline... so I went out and bought the 3 animated series DVDs and watched them through... it seems I only needed to watch the first one (which makes sense since this album came out even before the first season of the HBO special ended) but I was hooked and became a fan of the SPAWN franchise... all beacuse of this friggin' album! LOL! As for the music... it would serve as the PERFECT soundtrack to a motion picture based on the character (but it didn't, but the movie wasn't that great anyway, so whatever)



All in all, another solid album by one of Metals best... but better if you are familiar with the storyline.

GOD of EMPATHY

Matt Barlow is the greatest vocalist mankind has ever seen!!

No one can put as much emotion and empathy in to their vocals as Barlow. This album is one of Iced Earth's best. I have had it 2 years and it never gets old. He has such an awesome range to his vocals he can get low and gritty and shred with the best of them. Also, he can soar almost as high as King Diamond. He is the best. It's a shame he is no longer with I.E. but Ripper is quite decent. The best songs are A Question of Heaven and The Dark Saga. ALL HAIL THE GREATEST BAND EVER ICED EARTH!!!!

PS: Good Luck to Matt Barlow and his acquisition of a criminal justice degree.

Of Melancholy & Boredom

Only a year later, Schaffer Inc. releases yet another album. This time around, the songwriting is simpler, and generally more focused on just songs, rather than the epic thrashy sound of the past. Wheras the previous work was dripping with darkness & anger, this is more of a doom & gloom touch as it is yet another concept album. (centering around SPAWN) However, I feel there's a few problems starting to creep into the music starting at this point.



Matt Barlow is still on board and gives a very good preformance as usual. (there's a session drummer working on this album and does a fine job as well) Those looking for the thrash of old are going to be sorely disappointed, as there's really only two tracks that rip like that and they are "Violate" and "The Last Laugh." The aforementioned problems are Schaffer's ideas of simple music are really boring and never really get going off the ground. A good example of this is "The Hunter" which has a very cool rhythm, however the song itself is pretty boring and uninteresting, and this manifests itself in other songs as well.



While this whole thing is themed/conceptual, the last three tracks tie together directly into what's called "The Suffering Trilogy" and most of it also suffers from the problem I mentioned. "Scarred" & "Slave to the Dark" have a few cool parts in them but overall can't hold my attention. The finale is a ballad in the form of "A Question of Heaven" which is probably the redeeming quality of the entire record.