Burnt Offerings

I had never thought of power metal and thrash metal merging together until I discovered Iced Earth, and I never thought that it could sound so dark and be so dark and not happy like much of power metal. Oh, thank you to O'Sheaman as well for letting me know that there are two camps of power metal: light, keyboard-based power metal like Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica; and heavier/thrashier power metal such as Iron Savior, Gamma Ray, and of course Iced Earth. Iced Earth is definitely not flower metal in any form or fashion, except for maybe on tracks like Dracula off of horror show. Here we have a power metal vocalist that doesn't sound castrated and has some depth and resonance to his voice.

Wow, for a power metal album this is some pretty dark, depressing stuff. These guys are like the antithesis to Sonata Arctica. This is NOT a happy album, so just prepare yourself for that before you buy this.

I'd say the first track(which is also the title track) is the best song of the album because it has the best vocal performance by Matt Barlow(he sure beats Tim "Ripper" Owens any day in my book) and it's the meanest, most vicious song to be found here. It's not the thrashiest, but it best exemplifies the concept of the album I suppose. At the beginning, Barlow sings in some really deep, muted, gruff voice which is really fucking awesome, but I've never heard it before in any other Iced Earth song. Why the fuck not? Dammit, those vocals in the beginning of that song really work and I think he should've tried to sing whole songs like that from time to time.

Every song on here is chock full of emotion, albeit a bit cheesy, and this album is just thrashtastic. Some of the riffs to be found here pretty much knock Metallica flat on their ass, especially in Dante's Inferno. It is the epic song of the album and it has a thrash interlude that is so fucking fast and brutal that it's bound to knock you out of your chair. Thrash doesn't get much better than this, folks. Unfortunately, there aren't enough of those absolutely killer thrashtastic moments, but there's enough good riffing here to satisfy most metalheads.

Well, for power metal this is a very unique album and the integration of thrash is fantastic. Somebody recommended The Dark Saga to me, so that's most likely the Iced Earth album that I will buy next, if I do buy one. Highly recommended.