My reviews of each Iced Earth Release

Stormrider · My reviews of each Iced Earth Release

This will be a work in progress as there is a lot of material to review.

Purgatory - Burning Oasis Demo

I don't have this one yet so I can't review it yet.

Purgatory - Horror Show Demo

1. Jack
2. In Jason's Mind
3. Dracula

This demo of course has Gene Adam on vocals who I really don't like. Well his vocals anyway, don't know the man to dislike him. I first discovered IE when Night Of The Stormrider was released. Loved it and sought out Iced Earth. I didn't have the internet at the time (don't know if it was even invented yet), so my research was through magazines and metal catalogs. Of course I found nothing on the demos, but did find out about the first album. Read my review of that album later, it will let you in on why I don't like Gene's vocals.

Otherwise this is a great demo. These particular versions of Jack and Dracula of course are not the same songs as on Iced Earth's Horror Show album, but about the same guys. The music is just awesome for a "garage" band. Considering they were just starting out, they seemed to be pretty tight to me. This demo I guess you can say was a "concept" demo as each song is about great movie villians. In Jason's Mind of course about Jason Vorhees of Friday The 13th fame. I don't know what year Nightmare On Elm Street came out so maybe that's why there is no song about Freddy here. Though a song about Michale Myers of Halloween would have been cool.

Production is not the best but it is a demo after all, like I said earlier
even though they seem to play tight, the music is good, great even, but it's the vocals that keeps me from listening to this more often as I would like. His voice is really annoying when he attempts the high vocals, prime example about 1:20 or so into Dracula, that high voice he tries to use there just makes me cringe. Gene is not a bad singer until the high pitch stuff, he just can't do it. The music, as I said is good, but not quite Iced Earthish if you get my drift. But often it takes an album or two for a band to find their "sound" anyway.

Purgatory - Psychotic Dreams

1. Jack
2. Jason

The same songs as on the Horror Show demo, so nothing new to add.

Iced Earth - Demos '89

The cover pictured here is obviously from a bootleg of the demo I couldn't find an actual pic of the real demo. Nor have I found a physical or downloadable copy of the demo so I can't review this one either.

Iced Earth - Enter The Realm Demo

1. Enter The Realm
2. Colors
3. Nightmares
4. Curse The Sky
5. Solitude
6. Iced Earth

Enter The Realm is an instrumental, about a minute and half long or so. I don't know what the original tape version of the demo sounds like, as I said I only have the Dark Genesis version. But I don't think they re recorded the songs, they just sound remastered, not like a demo in other words. The rest of the songs (except Nightmares) are also on the first IE album. The only time you can here Gene's version of Nightmares is on this demo. Matt done the vocals of course on the Days Of Purgatory version. Gene's voice is still annoying, but I admit he did get slightly better on the first album. Still annoying though.

There really, to my ears, is not much difference in the demo songs and the ones on Iced Earth. But then I am merely a vocalist (besides managing a band and singing in my own) I know nothing about production and what not. All in all this is the demo that got them signed, and I can see why. Gene is actually good on Curse The Sky (as well as the majority of other songs, until his high pitched stuff kicks in).

Stormrider

Iced Earth - Iced Earth

I figured I don't need to post track lists so I won't. Anyway this is a review of the original release and not the remastered version. After listening to Enter The Realm (Obviously remastered) and this, the remaster of Realm sounds alot better. Not that this is a bad sounding album, it's just (it may just be my copy) that the sound sounds not so clean if you get what I mean here. Again we all know by now I am not a fan of Gene's high pitched vocals or yells or whatever you want to call them, in my opinion they suck, but when he just sings, he sings like a good metal singer should. This cd has 1 and a half instrumentals on it, Funeral has a short bit of vocals, so I will anally say that it is not a full instrumental, hehe.

The music is of course better produced than the demos, being as this is their first with Century Media which in my opinion is a great record label. And the galloping guitars are present (I really didn't hear them on the Purgatory demos, the ones I heard that is), to me the galloping is a staple of IE. Other bands of course do it, and probably before Jon, but it feels like Jon invented the galloping style as it seems to be so natural coming from him. The one thing that keeps me from listening all the time is of course as you read earlier, Gene's vocals, well the "scream" vocals anyway. He just doesn't have the voice to do that. Otherwise, I listen to the Matt versions (I made a cd of the Matt IE songs) more often than this if I want to hear the first IE. Though I must admit Gene's lyrics to Written On The Wall are better than Matt's Cast In Stone lyrics, for the same song. But such is my opinion.

Iced Earth - Night Of The Stormrider

As most of you know, on Days Of Purgatory, Matt did vocals on a few Stormrider songs as well. I have seen that a lot of folks prefer Matts vocals to Greely's. Me I am just the opposite. Not that I don't dig Matt or even Ripper's vocals, they both are great in my opinion. It's just that I think Greely was and well still is the best vocalist the band has had, remember my opinion, I know plenty of folks would disagree on this. Anyway this cd starts off with something that sounds like it came out of Carmen Baranda (you know that song, lots of folks used it, hell even Michael Jackson used that song, I don't remember it's name I just remember it came from that Carmen Baranda thing. I know I spelled it wrong. Is it an opera or something? I don't know but lots of folks in the metal world dig it. Ohh I think it's called O Fortuna or something like that, Therion recently recorded a version of it and so did Trans Siberian Orchestra, they played it at a concert I saw in 2006. Said it was for the new cd that has yet to come out.), and I love it. Then some of the best music of IE's career in my opinion plays on.

Some of you know this is my fav album out of all of them so far. I never realized it was a concept album til I actually read along with the lyrics one day. But the first two tracks, Desert Rain and Travel in Stygian are the best off the cd. The whole album just rocks me, but those are the best songs. Love the piano thing at the end.

Iced Earth - Burnt Offerings

Matt Barlow's debut. And a great debut it was. The intro to Burnt Offerings the song, is just awesome, why they changed it for Days Of Purgatory I don't know, I don't really like the Days intro of it anyway. The "look what your god has done to me" or something like that, came from Bram Stokers Dracula movie, with Gary Oldman. That was cool. Anyway this is a great album (as they all are) I would place this as my second favorite after Stormrider. The Romeo And Julietesque "Last December" is one of my fav tracks off the album. Not to keen on "Brainwashed" though it is a good song. "The Pierced Spirit" is pretty cool for the intro to "Dante's Inferno", where they kept it at 16+ minutes though it is basically three songs in one. Kinda like the trilogy at the end of Something Wicked This Way Comes, except in one song instead of three. It even shows it with three subtitles on the back cover. Still if there are any folks on this board who have not listened to IE (who would they be and why would they be here anyway?) this and Stormrider in my opinion are the best starter cds to get into the majesty that is ICED EARTH!

Stormrider

Iced Earth - The Dark Saga

Matt's second disc. This was originally intended to be the soundtrack to the Spawn movie, but it never happened, and they got several different artists to be on the soundtrack instead. Other than Marilyn Manson and one or two others that soundtrack sucked! Anyway, I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but the opening riff of the song Dark Saga after he says "I want to die, again" sounds like Metallica from their Black album, it reminds me of Enter Sandman. But I am not saying Jon plagiarized the Metalidudes, cause I have no idea whose album came out first, and don't care really, just saying they sound alike, the guitar riffs that is.
The best song I think is Question Of Heaven (part three of the last song trilogy thing the like to do it seems. Hmmm, a trend maybe, so far they done it on all their albums up to Glorious Burden, not sure if they did it on Framing Armageddon, but still...). It has Matt's wife or maybe sister, don't remember just know she has the same last name, doing the angel voices. Awesome she needs to be in a band of her own if she aint already. It seems that IE can do no wrong.

Iced Earth - Days Of Purgatory

Here we have the first official "Greatest Hits" album by IE. This of course is slightly different than most "hits" albums. You got the songs off the prior albums of course, but they all have been re recorded with Barlow's vocals! Of course the record company fixed that when the released Blessed And The Damned which does have a song or two from this compilation anyway. Folks on this site already know that I like and dislike Gene Adams vocals at the same time, so I was stoked to have Barlows vocals on nearly every song off the debut!!
There are two versions of this album a single disc with 15 songs and a double disc. I don't know why they called it "Days Of Purgatory" since they didn't have any songs from the Purgatory demos (unless Winter Nights was supposed to be on those demos or whatever, I have no idea where that song originally came from. Maybe it was a new recording for this album.) It does have a version of Enter The Realm which was on the IE demo of the same name, and of course some of the songs on the demo made it to the debut anyway.
But as far as my opinion of the album, for Barlow fans this is the album to get. For fans interested in hearing all eras up to Barlows last, The Blessed And The Damned is better. Barlows IE debut re recordings (except for Cast In Stone, I actually like Gene Adams lyrics better in his version called Written On The Walls) are enough to have made me sought out a Barlow version of the only song from the Debut not re recorded which was Curse The Sky, found a live version on youtube, albiet a bootleg but still, I made a Barlow version of IE for my personal use, I will not upload it to any where (cause it would be illegal). It would be cool if they actually had a studio version of Barlow singing that song but oh well. This Greatest Re Recorded Hits collection is awesome, the Chaos Comics artwork superb!!

Iced Earth - Something Wicked This Way Comes

This album is not my favorite but I don't hate it in the least bit. The Wicked Trilogy at the end is what I listen to almost exclusively off the album (Though I really like Disciples Of The Lie as well). I have always thought the trilogy was about the Antichrist and not an alien invasion sci fi thing that it turned out to be. I liked the songs better when I thought it was an ode to the Antichrist, still a great story anyway. The song Blessed Are You which is dedicated to us minions (The fans) is pretty damn cool. Watching Over Me is apparently dedicated to an actual friend of Jon's (or was it Barlow, I forget) that had died. That too was a cool move. But otherwise the songs seem to be rushed or at least not worked on long enough, of course many an IE fan will disagree with me, but that is just what I thought about the rest of the album, and yes even the song Melancholy, which I think would be considered the "single" of the album. But oh well that's just what I think.

Will post more reviews later.

paranoidmexican

this will be awesome! maybe we can have diffrent members review each album so we can see how everyone feels about certain albums. sounds ok to you?

by the way, i made this thread a sticky Smile

Set Abominae

I like Adam's suggestion. I'll gladly review each album.

By the way, anyone interested in joining my crew of reviewers? I just thought of this today, so nothing has been organized yet. If you want details, message me.

Dante

Great!!! Can't wait for the rest Smile

BTW anyone knows when this was used as a Enter the Realm cover?

paranoidmexican

i think they used that one in dark genasis

Stormrider

The Wicked One

question is do we keep it on this topic or do we make our own topics to review?

paranoidmexican

keep it here

Tainted Innocence

wait,
he had guest on dark saga?
as far as i can tell there was nobody new on it...

Guest

Nice reviews, though a little shallow here and there.

You're right in saying that John Greely is the best vocalist. It's a shame they had to fire him over something as fickle as a Nazi slip of the tongue. I mean, Slayer do that all the time, and nobody in the metal world takes it seriously.

Gene Adam is actually quite cool on the Purgatory demos which are more like hardcore than power metal, but he doesn't work with Iced Earth, except for To Curse The Sky, which actually sang well.

Tainted Innocence

matt's the best vocalist
HANDS DOWN.

Man's Coming Curse

Matts voice best suits Iced Earths writing style, its dark and sinister whilst also being melodic in the calm of I Died For You and other songs like this. Barlow is the man for the job. Even though other singers have been great, they dont feel at one with the raw sound as he does.

paranoidmexican

I liked Tim on TGB, but I don't think he did the best on FA. Gene Adam was cool as fuck, Greely slayed, and Barlow ruled them all.

Dante

Greely was really good...
It's a pity there's no bootleg from his tour. (!?Did he even tour with IE?!)

The Wicked One

Aggelos Poneros

Dante

Cool thank you!

Aggelos Poneros

no problem!

Dante

Stormrider: Why don't you send the Webmaster at IcedEart.com a mail with you're reviews?

From IcedEarth.com: "CD Reviews
If you have any CD reviews you would like us to link to or post, we'd love to hear from you. Just drop the webmaster a line with the link to your interview. Full credit and a link to your site will be provided. Thank You!"

Stormrider

To be honest I don't think my reviews are all that great. Sure they are my opinions, but most are not "professional". But sure I guess I can write the webmaster. It'd be cool to have it linked on the site and it would be an ADDITIONAL mention for this site on the official site.
EDIT: Just sent an email with a link to this topic and of course this site!
EDIT 2: Added reviews for Something Wicked and Days Of Purgatory, I just used the edit button so you have to go back to the first page to read them.

Tainted Innocence

plus,
reviews vary for each person.
and honestly if anybody should be doing any kind of review it would be jon.

paranoidmexican

Stormrider

So far nothing but of course it's barely been a day, so I will give a couple of weeks for them to answer, definitely will post their reply.

Dante

Great!
Can you tell us why you don't like "Disciples of the Lie"?

Stormrider

Dante

ohh I'm sorry i misread it. I thought it was DISlike

Tainted Innocence

is that even possible?!

Dante

Thats what i thought to that's why i reacted...

Stormrider

It seems my reviews have been dead for a while, that is because I want to review fresh by listening to them once again and not reviewing by memory. Just with my new job (I am back at Wal Mart after an year and a half of living off the govment's disability checks, wish I still get them!) I haven't had much time. But I will review the rest and I just ordered the Slave To The Dark Box Set and will review that too. So Stay Tuned!

Stormrider

On our last episode, Stormrider had just reviewed (and half assed as usual, lol!) Something Wicked This Way Comes. We now continue where he left off.

The Meloncholy EP

As most of you know there were two versions of this EP. One was the original promo version which only had the first five songs on it (Meloncholy, Shooting Star, Watching Over Me, Electric Funeral, and I Died For You), than apparently due to high demand (or the record company wanting to cash in on IE's popularity at the time, maybe a combo of both who knows), Century Media decided to release the album to the public and added two more songs (The Ripper and Colors Live, a live song from Alive In Athens that never made to that live album, a nifty bonus in that they put a song you couldn't get anywhere else at the time). That is the version I will review (though the original is the same songs, well the first five, so you can say I am reviewing that too, I guess).

The EP starts off with the what some folks might consider to be a power ballad, definitions aside, it is a great song, Meloncholy. I know I will probably get ragged here, but this is just my opinion. When Jon does the acoustic or slow type riffs, no matter the song it all seems the same. I don't play guitar so I can't be sure, but listening to the slow songs side by side they kinda sound alike. But maybe I'm just retarded oh well. Anyway then the album gets its first cover tune in the form of Shooting Star by Bad Company. I like Bad Company and IE does a very good version of the song, however this is for some strange reason my least favorite Bad Company song, so I can't enjoy it as much as I would have had it been almost any other Bad Company song they covered.

We continue with an original song called Watching Over Me, which is a tribute to Jon's friend who died in a motorcycle accident, that friend, Bill Blackmon, also suggested the name Iced Earth for the band. It's a good tribute to any fallen friend really. Though I don't like all the "he's an angel now" type stuff in it, cause I would hope my friends are burning in hell and cursing god for eternity like I will be doing when I die. I hate god so much, but that is a whole other story. But even with that "angel" non sense, it is a great song. And if folks like to believe that heaven stuff more power to ya.

Next is the second cover Black Sabbath's Electric Funeral. Black Sabbath is a great band one of the best ever, and this is a very cool song to cover, though my opinion the perfect BS song for IE to cover with Barlow on vocals is the Ian Gillen fronted BS song "Born Again" and hell throw in a cover of "Disturbing The Priest" why not. Those would be cool for IE to do, I think. Next is "I Died For You" which is one of the best songs off of Dark Saga. I'm going to skimp on this song just saying it's awesome and leave it at that.

Followed by the last of the covers Judas Priest's The Ripper. I don't know what to say here either. If you like Priest, and IE than this song rocks. At the time Meloncholy was released, this particular cover was only available on the Japanese version of Dark Saga and the Judas Priest Tribute Album. Finally is the at the time exclusive track Colors Live. Which like I said was from the Alive In Athens recordings but due to some mix up somewhere was not included on the album (the track list omitted the song, and they didn't want to reprint all the albums already printed so they left it off), so as I said a nifty exclusive bonus at the time (the song is now on the current release of Alive from the Slave To The Dark Box Set). Not sure which was released first this EP or Alive In Athens, both were in 1999 though.

I will add more reviews soon. Keep checking. Here is what I have left to review...

Alive in Athens
Frankenstien/Ghost Of Freedom Promo Single
Horror Show
Dark Genesis
Tribute To The Gods
The Reckoning Single
The Glorious Burden
The Blessed And The Damned
Gettysburg (1863) DVD
Alive In Athens DVD
Iced Earth / Type O Negative / Engel Split Promo
Setian Massacre Single (Online Only Single, I think)
Overture of the Wicked Single
Framing Armageddon
Slave To The Dark The Century Media Years Box Set
Enter The Realm Of The Gods
I Walk Among You Single

Dante

Great review Stormrider!

Stormrider

Alive In Athens

First a little history on this release. Most of you know this as a 3 disc box set. Well there is a 2 disc version (which Jon says not to buy, he prefers his fans to get the 3 disc set) and I am not sure but I think a single disc version was put out at one time. If it was I have yet to find a copy of it anywhere. Anywho, I read on the net somewhere a long time ago that the song "Colors" was left off the set due to the fact the printing of the cd cases accidentally omitted the song from the track list, they didn't want to have to start over so just left it off. I think I mentioned this in the Melancholy review.

I don't really know what to say about this set. It is one of the best live albums EVER! If not THE best! It blows away Kiss Alive totally. I always thought that Kiss Alive was the best live album ever, than I found out not to long ago that most of the songs on that "live" album had been overdubbed and you are not actually hearing the live performances. But that is not so with Alive In Athens, this is IE LIVE no doubt about that. Barlow singing some of the best songs ever (of course he did, he was still in the band at the time) from the catalog back than. For anyone doubting getting this album (if you don't already have it) GET IT!!!

Frankenstein/Ghost Of Freedom Promo

This promo was to be a well promo for the 2001 tour with Judas Priest and Anthrax. It even has the tour dates listed. The tour was canceled after the 9/11 tragedy and never happened. There was no cover for the cd for some reason, and this apparently was not available to the public. I don't own this disc but I am currently the high bidder on ebay for it, and I hope I win, just to have it as part of my collection. This promo is nothing special as far as whats on it. Just the two songs, neither of which are remixed or remastered or anything. Well let me take back that "nothing special" comment, it does have an interview with Jon on it which is 10:22 long. Don't know much about that interview. One last note, those are not my pics though they are on my photobucket account. Those are the pics from the auction. If I win when I get it I will post better pics.

The Sexiest Metalhead

Must be quite rare.

Stormrider

Kanadwen

Nice review buddy, and yes, that is quite rare! I need to be snooping eBay or something more often, although I do have a copy of the Melancholy EP.....Russian version! #$@!

The Sexiest Metalhead

Stormrider

Horror Show

Again as with most of my reviews, a little history of this album. We all know the concept of this album so I won't get into that. I will get into the many different releases this album saw. The first two releases were a single disc and a double disc version. The single disc had only the 10 songs and not the Iron Maiden cover of "Transylvania". However some non US versions of the single disc had "Transylvania" on it often as track 8 which put it between "Dragon's Child" and "Frankenstein". Some releases had it at the end making it track 11.

The two disc edition was made in two different versions, a jewel case version and a digi book style version (See the Digi Book version in the scans below). I use to have the jewel version but lost it now I need to get it back. I do have the digi book version. It comes in a slipcase that houses the "book". The two discs are stored in cardboard sleeves that are glued into the book, and the lyric booklet is glued into the book as well. The little sticker on the slipcase, I added it was from the cellophane wrap and contained tour dates for that tour in Europe or some other Non US place.

Horror Show "book" and slipcase

"Book" open

Anywho this was Matt Barlow's last album of Iced Earth Originals, Matt's final IE album would be the Tribute To The Gods. I have said it before (more than likely in this forum) that Damien is one of my favorite songs (hell almost all IE songs are one of my favorites!) followed by Dracula and Phantom Opera Ghost. Of course the whole album is awesome. I have read reviews about this by various folks and it seems a lot of them either love this album or hate it, there seems to be no in between. Of course as with all IE albums I love it (yes that includes the Gene Adam stuff). I can't go on about music structures and timing and other shit about the music like some reviewers do, cause frankly when I read those I have no idea what they mean. I am not a musician (a lyricist and vocalist, but not a musician) all I can say is the music is fucking great. But would we expect anything less from IE?

The second disc is just a long interview (and the "Transylvania" cover, which means IE recorded three Iron Maiden songs, which I think is the most covered band by IE at the moment, though KISS is there too, but they only have TWO songs from KISS recorded whereas the other KISS tunes are usually covers in concert, but I think they do other Maiden songs in concert sometimes which makes my "Most covered" statement true, but I could be wrong, it may be KISS, but than I am getting off topic, sorry.) I am not a fan of interviews on disc as usually they are boring, and although I said I would listen to all the albums again before reviewing them, I skipped this interview when listening to the album. I remember it as being a little boring, but I never gave it a chance. So maybe when I finally do, I will edit this post with a proper review of the interview.

Anyway the digi book version may be rare but not that rare. I got it for $5, yes only five bucks from Century Media Records Mail Order. It was on sale. They still have copies in stock, but it is now $6, a whole dollar more. That is cheap for such an awesome package. I think if they still have copies come next payday (next week) I will order another one and put it on ebay. But that might be considered dirty pool, selling it for twice as much as I paid for it when it still is easy to get at the cheap price, but they don't gots to know, it can be our secret. Shhhh. Twisted Evil

Stormrider

Dark Genesis Box Set

As with the Frankenstein promo pic this is not a pic of my actual copy, unlike the Frank promo though I actually own this one. This is a "stock" photo of the album.

Anyway for those that don't know the details of the box set (I don't know who wouldn't at least on this forum anyway) here is a short synopsis of it. The discs are housed in a card board book type package. You open it to get the discs which are in glued to the book sleeves. The booklet is also glued in. The booklet has a nifty little history of IE by some fan who may have been a journalist or dj, too lazy to look for that info right now. The set consisted of the "Enter The Realm" demo and first 3 IE albums and a at the time recorded exclusively for the set fifth album "Tribute To The Gods".

I don't like the big packaging as I can't store it with my other IE albums, unless I go the bookcase route to store them, Right now I use cd racks which are made for regular jewel cased cd's not these big box sets. But I digress. If you notice on the cover that looks like Set on there. If it is than I guess this is where he started to become the official cover boy for IE albums. Anyway great artwork as usual, not so great packaging.

First album is the "Enter The Realm" demo which is a remastered cut of their demo tape, the one that got them signed to Century Media. At the time it was not available anywhere else. I have reviewed the demo at the begining of this thread so I won't re review it here, just showing that it's part of the box set.

Next up is the remastered self titled first album "Iced Earth". Other than cleaner sound I really don't know what is different as far as the remaster goes, so there is really nothing new to review here that I hadn't already reviewed for the non remastered version earlier in this thread.

And then there is my favorite album "Night Of The Stormrider" which is remastered as well. Though there is noticeable differences in the remaster and original. The opening guitar riffs of "Angels Holocaust" are more prominent than in the original release. The original you can barely hear the guitar riffs at all. Another difference is the spoken part of "Before The Vision" it is totally eliminated. Other various differences can be found through out the remaster but most are not noticeable at all. Still my fav IE album ever.

And fourth is the remaster of "Burnt Offerings". Not much difference here from the original other than cleaner sound and some slight music differences but not really noticeable unless you listen side by side and even than not to noticeable unless you are a die hard fan like myself. But the differences to me does not make it any better or worse. This is my second fav album by IE ever.

Finally the exclusive to the set (at the time of the release anyway, it later came out on it's own) is "Tribute To The Gods" which is a tribute to the artists and bands that influenced the band (but mostly Jon). 11 tracks spread through about 7 bands. KISS' "Creatures Of The Night" and "God Of Thunder", Iron Maiden's "Number Of The Beast" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name", AC/DC's "Highway To Hell" and "It's A Long Way To The Top", Blue Oyster Cult's "Burning For You" and "Cities On Flame", Judas Priest's "Screaming For Vengence", Alice Cooper's "Dead Babies" and Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath". Really not much to say it is a great tribute IE style! Plus I am getting hungry and tired and can't think so I really don't know what else to say.

Dante

Another great review!

The Sexiest Metalhead

Nice reviews. This inspries me to write my own, but I don't have to time. To much school work.

Feanìs

cool thing!!!

Stormrider

Well I am skipping a whole mess of albums to get to the Slave To The Dark Box Set. So as the Joker in Dark Knight said "And here....we....GO!"

This is basically just a review of the packaging and bonus songs as the albums are already reviewed (well most anyway, and though they are ALL supposed to be remastered the ones after Burnt Offerings I couldn't really tell any difference so I won't review that aspect of the albums).

As we all know (or should know) Century Media has decided that they want to make even more money off Iced Earth buy releasing each "mini LP" remastered album on it's own, completely independent of the box set. Though collecting the "new" albums that way will cost almost $100 or so MORE than buying the box set and you won't get the awesome box. The artwork of the set is just fucking awesome! And I love the packaging. The cd's come housed in gatefold sleeve type cases reminiscent of classic double lp's. And the cd's with two or more discs, come in their own sleeves in those gatefold cases, just like lp's from the day. Not to mention the cd's themselves are made to look like lp's (hence the mini lp in the the titles). Even the ones with more than one disc have lables like lp's "Side A" and "Side B" type labels. They even gone as far as writing "Stereo 33 RPM" on the labels.

Now on to the music contents...

Iced Earth - They decided to use the original non US artwork for this album. The actual album is the same remaster from the Dark Genesis set. There are no bonuses on this release. Though the cd booklet does feature the US release cover and remastered cover artwork with the lyrics and it folds out to be a mini poster of the cover artwork on one side.

Night Of The Stormrider - As with Iced Earth, this is the remastered version from Dark Genesis but with the addition of a bonus track. The cd booklet features the infamous never used Rick Barstelmann artwork that looks like an aged Jon Schaffer with vampire fangs on a vampire horse. It also features a little story about the three used and unused artworks for the album. Story and lyrics on one side and like Iced Earth a mini poster of the album cover art on the other. Unlike the Iced Earth album they stuck with the US version artwork rather than using the "Flying Frog" or Barstelmann artwork on the gatefold sleeve. The bonus track is the rare live version of "Stormrider" recorded at Waken in 1998. This song was featured as a Japanese bonus track to the original release of "Something Wicked This Way Comes".

Burnt Offerings - This one is the remaster from Dark Genesis but uses the original artwork rather than the remaster artwork. There is no cd booklet as they decided to release this as a double disc set. The first disc is the remastered album and the second disc is the "rough mix" of the entire album. Slight differences but I really didn't pay much attention to give a proper review the the rough mixes, I will eventually.

Days Of Purgatory - Nothing different on this release besides packaging, no bonus tracks or unreleased artwork.

The Dark Saga - This too has nothing different than the original release other than two bonus songs called "Hellspawn Mix 1 and Mix 2" which are nothing more the rough mixes of the song "Dark Saga".

Something Wicked This Way Comes - I couldn't tell what was remastered here compared to the original so I can't say much about that aspect of the album. It does feature the three cover songs from the Melancholy EP as bonus tracks which is cool. "Shooting Star", "Electric Funeral" and "The Ripper".

Alive In Athens - The only addition to this three disc set is the song "Colors" is back on (disc 2). It was left off the original release for reasons mentioned in the other review of this album and was than released on the Melancholy EP.

Enter The Realm Of The Gods - A combination of the remastered "Enter The Realm" Demo and "Tribute To The Gods" album. Same versions as on Dark Genesis. No bonus tracks or anything else.

Horror Show - This was released a while back with the bonus track "Transylvania" on it as a two disc set, with a long interview and the bonus song on the second disc. You can still find the single disc version WITH "Transylvania" on it at most Best Buy stores (the ones in my town have em) but the bonus is track 8 being placed between "Dragons Child" and "Frankenstein". So it's not really a rare song or bonus song, as the version WITHOUT the song is the hardest one to find. This version (supposedly remastered) features the track as track 11 as did a few imports of the original back when it came out.

Alive In Athens DVD - No bonuses nothing different, exact same as original dvd release, region 0, meaning it can be played on virtually any dvd player in the world. Of course because of the box set being made the way it is, there is no dvd case it is just in a cardboard sleeve like how most promos are released. No gatefold no booklet.

All in all well worth the money for die hard fans such as myself even if you already have all the albums. Especially if you are a nitpicky fan since all albums are "remastered". The artwork and box to hold the collection are really what motivated me to buy this set. Yes we all know Jon does not endorse the set, but he did say the same as I am saying. If you are a diehard fan you will want it. Of course be prepared to pay over 120 bucks at least. Or spend close to $200 if you buy them individually, but remember that way you don't get the box.

Kanadwen

I'll get it eventually...

Sentinel

I bought it on the release day, got it for 99,95€. Even if it lacks of unreleased songs it still completed my Iced Earth discography, so i think it was well worth the money!

Stormrider

Dante

Great review!
And no, it doesn't lack unreleased songs.
They can't give you something that hasn't been recorded!

Sentinel

Stormrider

Sentinel

Yes, if the box wouldn't be that nice I would have been pretty disappointed. But for now i think it was a decent purchase.

Well, let's hope Iced Earth will release someday a box truly for the fans, with some really cool unreleased material. Maybe some live recordings from Burnt Offerings era and some studio outtakes versions of songs, now that would be awesome!

Stormrider

mysticalend