The Glorious Burden

This album could have warned us about what was to come from Jon Schaffer- the mess of a solo project known as Sons of Liberty. On the other hand we can hope he continues to shovel his political and patriotic lyrics there and not awkwardly onto Iced Earth, which is what happened with this mess of an album. All IE albums have their own distinct personalities, and if it wasn’t for its patriotism and military history theme, it’d give Something Wicked a run for its money on inconsistency and confusion. We have an album that is clearly the successor to Horror Show and the Demons & Wizards s/t- the guitar tone and production are very similar, and it has some of the dense power metal atmosphere in its layered choruses and guitar harmonies (“The Star Spangled Banner” sounds like a wall of guitars, a well done one). On the other hand, there’s a quite a lot more thrash sound here in some songs. This isn’t a bad thing- “The Reckoning” “Red Baron” and “Greenface” are probably the most energetic songs on the album and break Schaffer out of his gallop groove to feature his most interesting riffs in some time. The hard-driving chuggers “The Reckoning” and “Greenface” could very well be west coast thrashers by Mustaine, and the choppy “Red Baron” could sound like Anthrax if wasn’t for its churning, vaguely galloping bass rhythm.

The thing is they stick out in a sea on bland power metal gallops and ballads. A bunch of the songs resort to having long sections of mid pace gallops (“Attila”, “Waterloo” “The Devil to Pay”) that do nothing, or slow ones (“Declaration Day”) that do little. “When the Eagle Cries” and “Hollow Man” are slow, over-dense ballads that both kind of sound like that bad parts of “Ghost of Freedom” lyrically and musically. Further, while Richard Christy was retained from Horror Show, the drumming here is relatively simple.

The sound is made a little more inconsistent with the debut of Ripper Owens’ vocals. He sounds a little out of place on some of the more ‘power metal’ songs, especially the ballads, and the band hadn’t yet adjusted the guitar tone to him like they would on the next album. However he sounds right at home on the thrash songs and overall does a damn good job given the circumstances (stepping in to finish a nearly done album after Barlow’s departure).

The problem is the lyrics he’s handed. This album’s patriotism and history themed lyrics have all the subtlety and accuracy of a third grade history project. “The Reckoning” “Greenface” and “Declaration Day” have some grimy touches of jingoism while remaining somewhat decent songs. “When the Eagle Cries” and “Valley Forge” are not. They’re unlistenable. The former gives 9/11 an awful schmaltzy, syrupy yet revenged fantasy tinged ballad treatment that’s hilarious in hindsight with Schaffer now into “9/11 Truth”. In the latter a Revolutionary War soldier spits Schaffer’s bile for him at a modern America gone soft or something; it’s just impossible to listen to and with the revenge fantasy jingoism elsewhere in the album it shows the ugly side of patriotism that can manifest as things like Sons of Liberty. It’s too bad, because it buries within itself and awesome solo by session guitarist Ralph Santola. The historical songs (including the Gettysburg series) suffer too when they sometimes sound like Owens is just reading off a list of trivia, in some cases wrong, and in some cases goofy (give “Red Baron” a listen, you’ll see).

Again, this album is inconsistent, so it’s not consistently bad. “Declaration Day” is a solid if slow power metal track with an excellent Santola solo and the thrash songs mentioned are fun on the strength of their riffs. The Gettysburg series that closes the album is also an amazing piece of symphonic power metal. It was literally recorded live with an orchestra behind it, giving it a dense, powerful punch especially in the choruses. “The Devil to Pay”, the section covering the first day of the battle suffers a bit from stretching its plodding gallop of a main riff out over too long (most of its 12 minutes) and sounds like a trivia list sometimes but breaks things up a bit with breaks into famous military songs. The second day’s “Hold at all Cost” is very straightforward- just a couple riffs, but it drives hard and has a powerful chorus conveying the desperation that was Joshua Chamberlain’s bayonet charge. A thundering, ominous drum roll and series of power chords opens the last day’s “High Water Mark”, where after some hushed and slightly goofy discussion between Owens and Schaffer (as Lee and Longstreet) it launches Picket’s charge with all the glory gallops, an orchestra and an epic rallying call chorus (“We’re almost there my boys! I’ve never served with finer!”) can give it.

It’s too bad Schaffer dumped so much poorly-put politics and patriotism and so many mediocre riffs on here. There are good ways to do patriotism and history in metal (say Iron Maiden or Running Wild), but for the most part this isn’t it. The good riffs and the stronger material like Gettysburg are very good- I’d give it a very high score, but it may not be worth it to slog (or skip) through the incredibly weak surroundings. As it stands this is as inconsistent as many IE albums, falling short of the glory of its title.