Here you go FS... now playing:

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

Yes you bastard, I'm currently listening to a supposed masterwork of Iced Earth. My free flowing thought as the album progresses:

 

About 4 songs in right now and I must say. I knew what this was gonna be and it is what I thought it was gonna be. Soaring drum beats, supreme guitar ability filtered into the power metal realm of soaring heavy riffage tempered by progressive emotional balladry. Jon Schaeffer is an excellent guitarist, no doubt. I'm really digging a lot of the riffs and they seem to logically fit into their proper form. He's an insufferable anus, but he knows how to craft a song.

 

Another thing I hate about this genre: chug chug chug riff mad opening gets us going hard -> nice heavy song keeps the momentum going without moshing your head in -> singitty songitty balladry that makes me stab a ball point into my ears because it comes off smelling of cheese and pretense -> riffy song to get us going again.

 

Ok, who the fuck is singing this? This guy sounds like Zakk Wylde if Zakk was wearing a white shirt with a frilly front and curly hair. He's a fine singer but he's RUINING this album for me. It all seems so off tune with everything else and his highs he uses to emphasize a riff or transition are godawful and forced beyond his range. Do it if you can, if not....just don't.

 

Ballad -> chugga chugga again. Schaeffer is really saving this for me. But then I never really doubted his guitar playing. The drummer is doing well to know when and where to throw kick mad speed metal into the mix which helps things along nicely.

 

Song 7 and this really starting to get samey to me. No song, as a whole, has blown me away as of yet and since this is a foray into a somewhat new genre for me, that doesn't make me want to go and investigate more albums and bands.

 

Reaping Stone is on now and it's striking me as a far more sinister Mr. Tinkertrain and I'm quite digging this so far. This singer is still pissing me off with his Zakk-ness but it works on this song since his voice is lower of the register and it fits the dark nature of the song well enough.

 

Well, The Coming Curse goes on like a mofo like all good album enders do.

 

So there you go FS, I gave your boys a chance, but I just can't get into it that much. Schaeffer is everything you'd want him to be in a bandleader/riffman but beyond that everything seems quite...pedestrian. But it's not complacent so I can't penalize them for being lazy musicians anyway. But by the same token, they love sticking to their style a little too much at times when variation would be welcome. Too much chug riffing that goes into power ballad that goes back into chugging.

 

Now I have to listen to Brave New World in some kind of analytical way.

[Slayer 0]

Soaring drum beats, supreme guitar ability filtered into the power metal realm of soaring heavy riffage tempered by progressive emotional balladry.

When you start a review off like that, I could have no idea of the negativity that would follow

 

The only point I agree on is that the rocker-ballad-rocker-ballad alternation on this CD is quite annoying. Thankfully this is the only IE CD where this is an issue.

 

Matt Barlow (the singer) is one of my favorite metal vocalists, personally. Unfortunately he quit singing to concentrate on becoming a badass DA or something like that.

 

Re: Sameness - Sameness is going to happen in any form of music. I quit complaining about sameness in music (aside from pop music, but pop deserves to be mocked) a long time ago, personally.

 

That's also to say nothing of the irony of you chiding them for sameness while singing the praises of assorted black-metal bands who are equally as guilty of such a trait.

 

Beyond that, there's just no accounting for taste, period.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

It's not as negative as it seems. Just frustration in how the album played out in that it all just started blending together into the same format.

 

Your BlackMetal point is well taken but yes it does all fall under the banner of personal taste. I find Black Metal's repetition to be less repetitive while also being better used in the framework of that style

[Steviekick 0]

Ok, who the fuck is singing this? This guy sounds like Zakk Wylde if Zakk was wearing a white shirt with a frilly front and curly hair. He's a fine singer but he's RUINING this album for me. It all seems so off tune with everything else and his highs he uses to emphasize a riff or transition are godawful and forced beyond his range. Do it if you can, if not....just don't.

Thats exactly why I was never able to get into Iced Earth.

[stahl 0]

I think Barlow is one of the 5 best metal singers ever. Listen to "A Question of Heaven" and maybe you guys will change your minds on his voice and style.

[Nevermortal 0]

This thread calls for more Cryptopsy.

[Guest FrigidSoul]

The Dark Saga is a much better Iced Earth CD for you Tack and its actually my second favorite behind their new release, "The Glorious Burden". Barlow does some grunting in The Dark Saga, and Ripper is the new vocalist for IE now.

 

Brave New World isn't my favorite Iron Maiden CD either you bastard. I've repeatedly said their first CD is by far my favorite and their new one, Dance of Death, is quickly becoming one of my top choices as well.

 

Go listen to "The Dark" album by Metal Church as well.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

You told me that I needed to hear Brave New World so that's the one I bless with my metal knowledge

[Nevermortal 0]

Brave New World is awesome. "Blood Brothers", "The Wicker Man", and "Ghost of the Navigator" are rule.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

Is Barlow REALLY that much of a love him or hate him guy?

 

I've never seen anyone on the forums say that they were OK with him - they either hate him, or love him. Odd.

 

Anyway, I'd say that for people who're fans of death/black type metal, your best IE bet is Burnt Offerings, most especially "Dante's Inferno". Heavier then most of their stuff, and some pretty impressive growling near the end - well, for a power metal singer, anyway.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

The Glorious Burden just makes me want to poop a lot.

 

It gets no cheesier. I'm talking..same plateau as King Diamond and Helloween.

 

Thumbtack, what are you doing prancing around to this studded leather jacket shit anyway?

 

Listen to something almost worse, like one man porn/gore stabfest "Putrid Pile." At least it doesn't kid itself about what it really is.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

We've discussed Putrid Pile before. As far as the experimentation with more cheddary realms of metal, it's only because FS won't leave me alone about it so I figured I'd better do something about it.

 

I'm about to fully recover via Black No.1'ing myself with my Satyricon/Enslaved split grim as all get out cd.

[Slayer 0]

As far as the experimentation with more cheddary realms of metal

Gees, you act like cheese is a really bad thing

 

I like a lot of cheese metal, whether of the fantasy type (Manowar, Rhapsody, Hammerfall, BG) or of the 80's hair-metal type

 

I will admit though that there are far too many bands named Dragon(something-or-other)

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

Any real hatred I show towards that brand of metal is simply well amplified black metal elitism. I just don't make a point to listen to the stuff since I have very little interest in the style. Manowar, Rhapsody, Hammerfall are three of the most uninteresting and cliched mounds of Heavy Metal mistake I've ever heard. Although a bit of extra credit to Rhapsody for their genius shred man Luca. Just so much interchangeability in a genre that desperately needs originality for it's acts to really stand out.

 

And yes I know that there is a lot of the same thing in Black Metal, but they can get away with it far more than Power can. Black Metal, as an art, is more about the feeling and atmosphere and introspection. They happened to find a formula for that which works the best "to stimulate the fantasy of mortals" to quote Varg Vikernes. Power Metal is storytelling. And i don't like the hear the same glorious battle told by a dozen bands in (TO MY EARS) a far-too-similar-way-for-it's-own-good kind of way. I would never try to knock down the guitar of Jon Schaeffer any sooner than I would try to bring Bruce Dickenson or Hansi Kursch's vocals down etc.

 

The long and short of it is that I don't generally enjoy the tools that Power Metal bands employ to get their message across. I hardly hate it or wish they would all disappear.

[Guest FrigidSoul]

I wouldn't mind listening to more black/death metal if they had vocals more along the lines of Aaron Stainthorpe from My Dying Bride. Its the incoherent shit that pisses me off because I just don't see the point. Why are you opening your mouth at all if I can't fucking understand you?

 

I also realise that My Dying Bride is "Doom Metal" but still, I think the death metal genre especially would be better with more vocalists taking a cue from him. I often love the guitar work done in those bands but the muffler sounding vocalists turn me away.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

For black metal especially, the harsh (generally) high pitched scream is based on the death metal theory that the voice acts as another instrument in the band. The high picthed scream comes originally with the idea that it is the expression of the pain and despair and hatred etc of life in 'the mortal realm' which again goes to the Stimulation of Fantasy point. Some (mythology based for the most part) bands use it, for example, as a representation of the oskerei which is the mythological "Wild Ride" where the spirits of the dead in Germanic lore come to the mortal world at night and basically terrorize the living by raping and pillaging and burning. All the good stuff and I'm hoping I remember that properly. That's about my preferred interpretation of it anyway.

 

As far as not understanding what the vocalists are saying, it get exponentially easier after listening to various bands over time. Unless they are doing something really off kilter with their voice, I can pick up the jist of what any of them are saying.

[stahl 0]

My Dying Bride's first album was straight death metal lyrically if I do recall. I am glad they changed their style as I hate death metal.

 

Thumbtack, if you are looking for a different style of power metal, try Nightwish.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

I pretty much hear them all at some point along the line, and that includes nightwish. No interest in them either, but thanks.