Iced Earth vs Metallica I
January 30, 2007 by Jo Minor
Iced Earth’s Upcoming Curse
It’s been warm for far too long, but America’s Great Hope of Heavy Metal Iced Earth is preparing - hopefully, not a concluding - icy attack on all of its fans worldwide. Mastermind Jon Schaffer has given us a rough idea of what’s to expect from his fresh line-up of more-than-willing warriors; only vocalist Tim “Ripper” Owens has prior experience with the band - after having contributed his vocal duties the Glorious Burden, and drum maestro Bobby Jarzombek has worked with Jon in the second Demons & Wizards offering Touched by the Crimson King.
Schaffer has revealed his intentions of creating a massive aural experience in the upcoming album (ironically, as he has done with all of the band’s previous albums) through the vision he has had with the Something Wicked This Way Comes album. This is a very salivating premise; the last three songs stand as the foundation, so to speak, of the album and also offer us a thrilling end to one of the most complete Metal albums ever released by any band. A complete album, a double-disc affair no less, based on the Something Wicked Trilogy… now this idea provides some salvation and a sense of hope to those who weren’t as keen to engage in battle, with a burden on their backs, as Jon and his comrades were with the last studio release.
The Glorious Burden
The Glorious Burden was not an average album by any means, but sadly, it was an average album from a great band that has given us so much in such a relatively short time. Good isn’t good enough when it comes to Iced Earth, and this really shows in The Glorious Burden. Still recovering from the tragic departure of Matt Barlow from the band to pursue his greater ambitions, it might take us more time to get used to, let alone truly embrace and enjoy, the dynamic vocals of Tim Owens. Owens, who has a greater voice control and an even greater exposure to the world of Heavy Metal (Judas Priest, anyone?) than Barlow, sadly lacks the emotion to convey the bands more heart-wrenching tracks. Barlow, however, cannot match Owens in multi-range vocals and screams - Ripper Owens is simply a master of the art, lets not forget that he did fill in for none other than Rob Halford.
From my constant observations and endless hours of listening to the “new” and “old” Iced Earth, I can conclude that Barlow simply fit the band better - he was the melancholic holy martyr, he was the relentless prince of pain, he was The Stormrider. Owens, however, can probably handle the songs with more screams better than Barlow - for instance, saying that Owens singing “The Burning Times” sounded better to me than Barlow’s take in the studio would probably get me in hot water, but I can include a mitigation with that statement by saying that Barlow would have probably been better off handling certain songs in The Glorious Burden like “When The Eagle Cries” - where pure emotion was the main theme of the track.
The Glorious Burden, although turning off some Iced Earth fans with its strong military and war-themed songs, did have some truly golden moments which would make the album truly worthy of the Iced Earth name even to the most harshest of critics. For starters, there are at three powerful songs in the album that truly stand out, and are really powerful songs in every aspect - “Declaration Day” and “The Reckoning” and “Red Baron/Blue Max”. The first two songs I mentioned are solid, rocking songs which are, very simply, classic Iced Earth-sounding.
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