Iced Earth

Holy shit. It seems I have the dubious distinction of being the only Gene Adam fan on the planet. That’s right, I actually prefer his obnoxiously metal wailing and pseudo-singing above all the Iced Earth vocalists to come, especially Matt Barlow. His vocals, along with the rest of this album, represent a different era of Iced Earth, before their lyrics became watered down in overly emotional bullshit, their sound evolved from solid to overproduced, their riffs became weaker and repetitive, and their albums were swamped in mediocre power ballads and overt progressivism. Their debut is almost purist fucking thrash metal, only slowing down for the occasional clean interlude or bridge and I don’t think they’ll ever release a better album than this.

First off, the sound on this album is immense. From the first crushing chords of the title track to fading solo of the last song, the album maintains an almost epic degree of heaviness. The production is perfect, absolutely perfect. The guitar tone is killer, all the instruments are easily heard, no flaws in tracking or volume. The songwriting is amazing here as well. The riffs are heavy and unique, the song tempos are dynamic, and the occasional clean riffs are cool as well. The only real problem here is the cohesion between riffs. The songs constantly shift focus, with most songs having several bridge sections that sometimes never return to the earlier riffs. This is delightfully progressive at times and moderately irritating at others. This is my only real complaint with the songs here and it’s hardly a major one.

As mentioned before, the riffing is awesome. Even better are the guitar solos. Almost every solo on the album is a memorable one, technically and melodically. Notable ones include the lead at the beginning of “Written on the Walls” and also in “Curse the Sky.”

The lyrics on the album are among the band’s best. Way darker than most of the stuff on their later albums and a hell of a lot less lame. Gene Adam’s hellish falsetto and wicked growling are perfect accompaniments to the lyrics, despite the general dislike of him. Matt Barlow’s versions of these songs on Days of Purgatory and Alive in Athens just don’t measure up to the originals. Adam’s voice is unbelievably evil at times, almost as if he was possessed, which absolutely works for this album. It’s probably better that Iced Earth got rid of him, as I can’t imagine Stormrider or Burnt Offerings sung any other way, but on this album, there’s no substitution.

Besides the cohesiveness issue, there’s really nothing else I can hold against this album. It’s fast and heavy most of the way through, with the occasional acoustic/clean riffs to add a nice progressive edge to the mayhem. Don’t let the vocalist detract from the music, he’s not as bad as he’s notorious for. He actually gives the album a step-up from the rest of the band’s work and I consider Iced Earth’s self-titled not only their best, but one of the most original metal albums I’ve ever heard.

Best tracks: Iced Earth
Written on the Walls
Curse the Sky
The Funeral