Burnt Offerings

This album is Iced Earth's second in a row of pretty much all thrash all the time. It's not quite as focused on an utter riff onslaught as Stormrider, going for darkness and atmosphere a bit more often, but still it is very, very good.

Burnt Offerings starts us off - probably the best song on here, with a great sequence of riffs. Thrash classic. Last December is also pretty good, except the chorus sometimes gets a bit too over-the-top for me. It is here where Matt Barlow is clearly not as good as John Greely. Greely was a Halford-like shrieker, Barlow is more a bellower, especially in how he sings "Last December!"

The rest of the album goes through above average thrash metal riffs for a while, sounding like Bay Area thrash the most - a bit of what would happen if Testament were actually GOOD, and also Death Angel. "Burning Oasis" and "Diary" are probably the highlights, until we get to the last track.

"Dante's Inferno" - it's epic as Hell, after all it is nearly 17 minutes long. And if you throw in "The Pierced Spirit" before it... the thing with Dante's Inferno is that sometimes the riffs are just kinda thrown in because they feel the need to have a new riff, without carefully thinking out the progression. They tried making the most ultimately thrashy song ever, and just completely went overboard. Unlike the Dark Angel-esque passages in "Travel in Stygian", here they tend to have almost randomly thrown in acoustic interludes, and then when you want a different riff, the same one comes back... especially the last three or four minutes, which are just a waste. It just seems like there is a very good 9 minute song in here... somewhere. (8 minutes and 50 seconds, actually... it's been extracted ;-) )

So my only two complaints are: less emphasis on viciousness of riffs - some death-metal atmosphere is thrown in here, and that kinda detracts from the overall thrashiness. Also, Barlow is no Greely, and while not nearly as bad as on later albums, his attempts to be emotional are not great either. But, other than that, this is a very, very good thrash album. For 1994, when thrash was practically dead, this is indispensable.