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Iced Earth: The glorious burden
16/06/09 || GardensTale
There was a lot of fear in the metal community when Matt Barlow tossed the towel into the ring concerning Iced Earth. As the vocalist, Barlow had put his stamp onto the thrashy power metal giants, and with the sound already shifting to simpler power metal, it seemed like it could be the final blow for Iced Earth as a quality band. The big test arrived when “The glorious burden” hit the shelves. A double album even, as the second disc contained the epic Gettysburg trilogy. Plenty of time to test the capabilities of the new formation, I’d imagine.
Apparently, if Wikipedia is anything to go by, they actually recorded the album with Barlow on vocal duty, but Schaffer decided Barlow wasn’t good enough and dragged Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens of former Judas Priest fame in to replace him. Bad fucking choice, John. While Ripper isn’t a bad singer in his own respect, he’s got a nasty edge to his voice that just doesn’t seem to match up with much of the music. In the end he just fails to convince, and no other kind of metal leans as heavily on the vocals as power metal does. The crappy production, leaving the music much too thin and vocals too loud, only emphasizes that.
That actually seems to be a big fucking problem. The production. The best tunes on this disc are the epic ones, and they need to fucking blow your skull when heard at proper volume. This just doesn’t make that mark. I can’t understand why a band the size of Iced Earth can’t manage a good production while there’s bands doing great production in their fucking bedroom (Ram-zet, anyone?) but here it is, and it stinks.
The songwriting is of varying quality, much of it not so much hooking you as carefully tugging your sleeve. There’s exceptions though: “Declaration day” is a great opener after the useless intro, “The reckoning” pounds nicely and “Waterloo” has got a nice hook. In contrast, “Greenface” adds nothing at all to the album, “When the eagle cries” is a gratingly patriotic ballad of little value and “Hollow man” is a gratingly whining ballad of, you guessed it, little value. “When the eagle cries” actually returns in an acoustic version, which is even worse.
But lo and behold! There’s a second disc, and though only two-thirds the length of the first one it’s twice as good. Here, suddenly the band takes its time to construct an epic story concerning the three day battle at Gettysburg during the American civil war. It’s funny how it stands in contrast to the patriotism permeating the first disc, as it sketches the horrors of the war very nicely, using more orchestral instruments than the first disc and more 3- and 4-man vocal parts. Both are a big boon to the epic music here.
The final song, “High water mark”, is especially well-written and really drags you in, with a big finish where Owens’ vocals for a change do shine as he plays the general, torn with guilt over the slaughter his plan caused. It makes you wonder why they couldn’t manage on the first disc when they show such good work here…
Though it’s two discs long, it’s still one album (some versions are packed on one disc, actually) and the discrepancy in quality between the first and the second disc leaves you with a very double feeling on the whole. Tacking on a score becomes difficult, so I’m just going to give disc one a 6 out of 10, the Gettysburg disc an 8 out of 10 leaving the average as the best indication of quality possible here.
7 firing cannons out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2004
- Label: SPV GmbH
- Website: www.icedearth.com
- Band
- Jon Schaffer: lead & rhythm guitars, backing vocals
- Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens: lead vocals
- Ralph Santolla: lead guitar
- James MacDonough: bass guitar
- Richard Christy: drums
- Tracklist
- Disc One
- 01. The star-spangled banner (intro)
- 02. Declaration day
- 03. When the eagle cries
- 04. The reckoning (don’t tread on me)
- 05. Greenface
- 06. Attila
- 07. Red baron/blue max
- 08. Hollow man
- 09. Valley forge
- 10. Waterloo
- 11. When the eagle cries (unplugged)
- Disc Two (Gettysburg 1863)
- 01. The devil to pay
- 02. Hold at all costs
- 03. High water mark
