Iced Earth

Sometimes the roots can be just as aesthetically impressive as the rest of the tree, despite any consensus that what lay beneath the bough being either obsolete or otherwise inferior. Taste naturally has a strong determinate effect upon whether one would consider the pre-Barlow days of Iced Earth, as the stylistic devices at work in Jon Schaffer's riff work and the overall atmosphere has a greater proximity to thrash metal than to the more power metal tinged stylistic hybrid that since became standardized following The Dark Saga. Nevertheless, while some do indeed find themselves staring upon the impressive base and stem beneath the bough of Burnt Offerings that is Night Of The Stormrider, few take time to consider what came before. It is a rather curious, if maybe somewhat understandable eventuality as there is a very clear separation between this band's eponymous debut LP and the rest in terms of character, but all the same, the genetic coding that makes the rest of the tree is definitely present throughout the network of roots that adorn the ground below.

When all the elements at play are considered, Iced Earth is about as close to a pure thrash metal album as anything to occur under the band's namesake, which does much to explain its polarizing character. Somewhere between the last demo under the Purgatory moniker in 1986 and when many of the songs that would appear on both this album and the preceding demo, Jon Schaffer transitioned out of being a traditional heavy metal band after the mold of Iron Maiden and Mercyful Fate into something a bit more nimble and versatile, likely the result of him exposing himself to the raw and experimental world of late 80s Bay Area thrash metal. The result is a still generally melodic, but extremely asymmetrical songwriting approach that is a bit jolting to those expecting early 80s Judas Priest rather than Testament or Heathen. The vocal approach of Gene Adam, while still grounded in the banshee wailing approach of Halford and King Diamond, finds a far more suitable medium here for his somewhat thin and sloppy delivery, a point of contention for most detractors of this album that is dwelt upon to the point of ridiculousness.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is difficult to miss the similarity in ideas between what came about here and what would follow on the next several albums. Part of this owes to the fact that three-fifths of this band would persevere up to the release of The Dark Saga, with the newly acquired shred-master Randy Shawyer tearing across the fret board in a highly idiomatic fashion that is wild enough for the solo passages typical to the likes of Alex Skolnick or Gary Holt, yet also making frequent usage of the consonant harmonized lead passages that adorned Iron Maiden and Queensryche's later 80s output. Similarly, the expansive atmospheric interludes that has since become the acoustic balladry of latter day Iced Earth make very frequent appearances, to the point of throwing some pleasing respites from the galloping madness of every single epic offering rounding out the listen. Keyboards even find themselves employed in a tasteful fashion at a few key points, predicting the symphonic explosiveness of the next couple albums while avoiding the overt bombast and pomp in question for something more ambient and melancholy in character.

Hindsight, indeed, is a rather curious thing when considering these songs and how their undisciplined character gives them a greater charm than their more polished descendants. Take the serene balladry turned thrashing and lead frenzied madness of "Life And Death", which manages to stake out a middle ground between the plainness of "A Question Of Heaven" and the long-winded maze of ideas that would be "Dante's Inferno" and finds a brilliant apocalyptic ode to mortality. Likewise, there is the horror-theme inspired intro turned maze of twists and turns "Written On The Walls" which gallops, thrashes and occasionally serenades its way through territory similar to the title songs off the next two albums, and almost outclasses them in terms of intensity. The often praised and unofficial promotional single "Colors" takes the most occasions to showcase Schaffer's chops as a nimbler and nastier answer to James Hetfield's riffing character, and also sees Gene Adam showcasing a fairly competent mixture of gruff and shriek. Truth be told, barring the brief acoustic ditty "Solitude", every song on here throws about everything but the kitchen sink at the listener, like seven demonstrations of just how committed Schaffer and company are to their newly discovered sound.

To a degree, it is understandable why this album tends to get the short end of the proverbial stick, as it lends itself to a different time than the rest of Iced Earth's catalog. The average fan of this band sees them through the lens of a post-early 90s mindset, ergo where metal became more about melody and hooks and less about quirky experiments in form and elaborate guitar wizardry. Though these 80s elements did endure to a large extent on Stormrider and Burnt Offerings, they are so blatant and unavoidable here that it is more readily compared to the likes of Testament's The New Order and Forbidden's Forbidden Evil than any of the remnant of heavy metal that modeled itself after Metallica's self-titled 1991 album in subsequent years. In essence, that is what makes this album so great, the fact that it manages to equally as melodically pleasing and tuneful as any Iced Earth album while bucking the rigid songwriting orthodoxy that would be demanded of any approved versions of metal that were allowed to the table in America following the Grunge explosion.

(Rewritten on February 23rd, 2018)