ICED EARTH HAS RISEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNN!!!!

NATURE WILL FALL!!!



I nearly sh*t myself when I finally saw this album at a music store... I buy it, go home, put it in my CD player and, like Maiden's first album... AIR GUITAR HEAVEN!!! A solid album through and through and I have to say I really enjoy Gene Adam's vocals here... it worked perfectly for that time and after hearing the re-recorded version of the song Iced Earth (with Matt Barlow on vocals) it made the original stand out more for me (I love both versions, but prefer the original... probably since I heard it first... it's also a bit faster) My favorite track on this one is Life and Death. All metalheads must listen to Iced Earth and this is a great place to start. One of the most impressive debuts, but not the bands best...

In the Beginning, the Earth was Iced

I will upfront state, this band has a slight sentimental quality for me. Iced Earth formed under the name "Purgatory" in the mid-eighties by the band mastermind Jon Schaffer. Iced Earth are pretty much a logical continuation of Metallica's earlier sound with Maiden-isms thrown in for good measure. (with liberal doses of classic rock influences)



The overall sound is very crunchy, but sadly the production suffers from being somewhat hollow and showing of it's limited recording budget. The spirit is certainly here, with nice moving rhythms, tempo changes, etc. Unfortunately, there are two (depending on your tastes) very big flaws apparent, one of which is that the vocalist Gene Adam sounds like a bad Axl Rose wannabe trying to hit King Diamond-style notes and it just doesn't happen. The second issue, is that his sense of vocal melodies is totally craptastic.



All is not completely lost however, as if you can bare through the crappy vocals, the songwriting shines in several areas. A few classics in the forms of their namesake and "Colors" are here, or the two instrumentals; "Solitude" (acoustic interlude) and "Funeral" make marks as well. There's really nothing overtly wrong with the entire thing besides the vocals, but man are they obnoxious.



Notes: This release has been remastered/reissued with new artwork.

The start of a legacy.

This is Iced Earth's first ever album, and it sounds pretty damn good for a band that only had $10,000 to record this cd. All of the songs are great, I espiecially liked "Written On The Walls" and "When The Night Falls". (One thing to note, is that "Written On The Walls" is actually the original version of the "Cast In Stone" epic that can be heard on their "Days of Purgatory" album). When I first heard this release, I wasn't too fond of the singer's voice. Eventually, I got used to it and the album became one of my favourites. I highly recommend this to fans of Iron Maiden, Blind Guardian, Three Inches of Blood, etc. This is the start of Iced Earth's legacy.