Days of Purgatory

Days of Purgatory is a collection of re-recorded and remixed songs from Iced Earth. Matt Barlow has made the impossible possible: for the first time in the history of Iced Earth - which have been 7 years - a singer stayed in the band for more than one album. Thus, Jon Schaffer saw in Barlow his eternal vocalist and rewarded him with the honor to re-record the songs from before his time and let him take over the vocals for these songs. As much as I would enjoy such an idea, as disappointed I am that they have executed this idea so stupidly.

First of all: Why have they excluded some songs from the first two albums? Why haven't they just re-recorded all of the old songs, and made the first CD contain all songs from the Iced Earth album and the second CD all songs from the Night of the Stormrider album? Or, since the purpose behind all this is to have Matt Barlow sing the songs Gene Adam and John Greely sang on, have even re-recorded some stuff from the Purgatory era, since Jon has literally called this compilation Days of my-band-when-it-still-had-the-old-name? They have excluded Curse the Sky, the best song from the first album next to written on the walls, and the only one that was actually worth re-recording with Matt on Vocals since Gene has turned this song into a joke back on the album (and the demo), as well as Mystical End from the Night of the Stormrider, as well as The Path I Choose. What makes this even more pathetic is that they have decided to let Matt sing two of these songs live later on, with The Path I Choose on the Alive in Athens show and Curse The Sky on the Horror Show tour. So what was the purpose in leaving them out? Instead they have inflated this compilation with supposed remixes from Burnt Offerings songs where the only difference you can hear out are the four high hat hits on the Creator Failure song and a different intro on the Burnt Offerings title track. Sorry, but I couldn't care less about remixes, maybe the differences would go directly into my ears if I had a 2000€ super sensitive sound system, but I don't want to waste my money on stuff like that. And they have added instrumentals? Who gives a fuck about Enter the Realm, Solitude and The Funeral, especially where is there any difference between this version of The Funeral and the original version? So you had the nerves to put Enter the Realm on this compilation, but not Curse the Sky? And both interludes from the Night of the Stormrider, but left out The Path I Choose and Mystical End? OK, I give Iced Earth one point for making Winter Nights happen, which was unreleased until now and even today the only thing we can find from it is a live version from a 1991 show in Wuppertal.

And now, secondly, who thought it was a good idea to cut out parts from songs? Where is the beautiful intro for When the Night falls? Why is the spoken part in Before the Vision removed? Yes, the essential thing was done, to hear Matt on songs that were made with other vocalists, but all this is just completely flattening the experience and leaves a bitter taste, since there were good parts from songs removed that made them perfect the way they were, and a regular remaster with switched out vocals would have been much more enjoyable. And the worst about it is the rework of Written on the Walls to Cast in Stone. Barlow's vocals are great as always, but not only were the keyboards removed from the intro, but also the lyrics were completely replaced with worse ones. Jon Schaffer must have had some personal problems with Gene Adam, because Written on the Walls was completely written by him, so letting Matt replace the lyrics must mean something (or there were copyright issues, which are completely understandable, but in this case he should still have insisted on better lyrics). Sadly, his lyrical skills were afwul back then, so if you know Ashes of Ares, you will be negatively suprised about how they have changed the apocalyptic prophecy from Written to the Walls into a bad B-Movie impression.

Now to the good part: the vocals from Barlow are significantly better than the ones from his predecessors and what makes the re-recorded songs even better is that Barlow has given the songs his own touch. He hasn't just sung the same notes as Gene and John, but instead he has changed them here and there and even the regular re-issue of the songs with Barlow on in just sound different, because he sings them angrier. This is something you could especially hear on the Night of the Stormrider songs. John Greely was good, but he was too soft on the mid-range notes, while Barlow is completely harsh on Angels Holocaust, Desert Rain and Pure Evil. Before I have listened to this compilation I had no doubt that he will rescue the songs from the debut album or Enter the Realm, respectively (Nightmares is from the demo) with his voice and that the songs from the Night of the Stormrider album will sound way better, but I didn't expect that he will give some parts a complete different interpretation. The high shrieks from John Greely were replaced with actual high singing notes, same with the vocals from Gene Adam, which mainly sounded like he has just read the lyrics. Matt Barlow puts energy and melody in his vocals, which just makes the songs overall better. Only Stormrider isn't sung by Matt Barlow, but by Jon Schaffer, and he fits perfectly to it. After this I would have preferred if he did the vocals on the debut album, I wonder why he hasn't. But until today he does the vocals on Stormrider live.

The Night of the Stormrider songs were also re-recorded with a harsher guitar tune and the effects and synths moved more in the background. The choir in the intro of Angels Holocaust was louder than the riffs in the original version, here you need to listen closer to hear them. With this you get a new experience of the album and the harsher tune fits better to the songs than the original thinner guitar sound.

As great as the new versions songs are, as disappointing it is that they haven't re-recorded all of the pre-Barlow tracks. Also, the Burnt Offerings Remixes are annoying fillers. I don't only mean they're pointless in their existence, but also they're annoying to be found on the CDs, where you always have to skip these tracks to get to the stuff you actually want to hear. This way the compilation is just incomplete and misarranged and leaves the two questions open, why haven't they included all the album and demo songs and how would they have sounded?