Minions of the Watch

Stormrider · Last edited by Stormrider on Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:39 pm; edited 1 time in total

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).

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Stormrider · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:44 am Post subject:

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!
_________________
"To answer the question asked of me "Have you been saved?", the answer is yes! I have been saved!! .......................
From Jesus by SATAN!!!" - Me

Stormrider · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:46 am Post subject:

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.
_________________
"To answer the question asked of me "Have you been saved?", the answer is yes! I have been saved!! .......................
From Jesus by SATAN!!!" - Me

paranoidmexican · HMFIC Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Posts: 483 Location: Houston, TX

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

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Set Abominae · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:24 am Post subject:

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.
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WHERE IS YOUR FUCKING GOD?!?!?!

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Dante · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:55 am Post subject:

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

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

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paranoidmexican · HMFIC Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Posts: 483 Location: Houston, TX

i think they used that one in dark genasis
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Stormrider · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:28 pm Post subject:

The Wicked One · Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 2:03 am Post subject:

question is do we keep it on this topic or do we make our own topics to review?
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paranoidmexican · HMFIC Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Posts: 483 Location: Houston, TX

keep it here
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