Artist: Iced Earth
Label: SPV Records
Released: 2004
Rating: 2.5/5
Hm, this record is one of the more controversial ones in metal. Well, at least for 2004. You hardly know where to start with a review. Every plus comes with its minus, which means the new Iced Earth album is pretty neutral in character. We’ll look at it from a few angles.
Iced Earth have put out a new album with a new singer. They managed to land one of the best vocalists of the younger generation in metal, if not technically the best, Tim “Ripper” Owens, who was left jobless after Judas Priest.
Besides vocalist Mathew Barlow, guitarist Larry Tarnowski also left the band, but Schaffer didn’t replace him. So Iced Earth now stand without a lead guitarist in the current lineup. Ralph Santolla played the lead breaks on the record as a special guest, but Schaffer doesn’t want him in the band, saying he’s technically brilliant but lacks wit and creativity in riff writing and originality in putting together solos. “The Glorious Burden” is an unbelievable record. It has eight shorter songs and a masterpiece of more than half an hour. The quality gap between those eight tracks and the half-hour opera is glaring.
The holiest part of the record is unmistakably the half-hour composition in three acts titled Gettysburg. Each act describes one day of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg. It confirms all of Jon Schaffer’s genius. The band invited none other than the Prague Orchestra to join in. The man completely immersed himself in the historical moments of that three-day ordeal while writing the piece, down to every single detail, which the composition brings to life so effectively. Schaffer is a sincere patriot, so the track opens with the U.S. anthem Star Spangled Banner in an interesting arrangement that even throws in a banjo. A ballad section follows, where the band builds atmosphere, and it leaps up when Iced Earth burst out with their trademark toxic Florida sound. Contrasting moods roll through the whole epic like that, depending on the situation and the state of the battlefield. The orchestral arrangements complement the band’s pulsing perfectly, and the atmosphere is truly phenomenal, high, alive and electric the whole way through. Tim is Tim, or “Ripper”, in the best sense of the word. His singing ranges from extremely heavy, dizzyingly high screams to venomous shouting in the lower registers. Tim shines in the ballad parts of the half-hour epic too, with a remarkable feel for softness and sophistication. Sensual and fully lived-in throughout. It’s incredible how fantastically he brings to life General Lee’s realization at the moment Lee looks along the battlefield strewn with corpses and streams of blood and grasps the full weight of his responsibility. That’s the final verses right at the very end of the song, which is the undisputed peak of the trilogy, if not of the whole record, and the half-hour epic is a true masterpiece in every respect. The band, together with the orchestra, conjured up a genuine musical drama.
Sadly, the rest of the material doesn’t come anywhere near this masterpiece. Red Baron/Blue Max is the only one among them that fully convinces. Schaffer should have put “The Glorious Burden” together as a one-hour concept laying out the entire Battle of Gettysburg. As it stands, it would have been better if Iced Earth had put out two albums. One would be the concept record, and the other would hold these eight shorter tracks, which are a pale shadow of the half-hour epic. The historical themes in the other songs are botched too and don’t convince. For example, we get a five-minute Waterloo with a boring motif that repeats through the chorus and pre-chorus. And it really wouldn’t have been hard to make a whole concept album out of the Waterloo theme. Instead, the whole thing is crammed “by force” into a five-minute composition.
Iced Earth have brazenly veered into imitating Iron Maiden, and Red Baron/Blue Max even sounds, in its vocal lines, as if Bruce Dickinson had staked them out for Owens. Valley Forge opens with a motif that damn well reminds you of When Two Worlds Collide by Iron Maiden. The solo in the outro of Declaration Day is a nice take on the fade out in 22 Accacia Avenue, while more than one triad harmony in the shorter licks also pulls very suspiciously toward that legendary band. A lot of punch gets “sacrificed” to laying down triad harmonies almost everywhere possible. That runs over the expressive, toxic “Florida riffing”, and it never comes alive. The band lost its punch through something else too. For example, the opening of Declaration Day is fantastic, the band unleashes a supersonic ultra-voltage, but the chorus kills everything. For one, it doesn’t fit structurally, because the slower tempo calms the sharpened atmosphere, and on top of that the choir singing tips the mood into an outburst of pathos that completely smothers Tim’s excellent performance. We find the same problem in The Reckoning (Don’t Thread On Me), where Tim comes in with a truly top-notch pre-chorus, and then a botched chorus utterly deadens that punch. Owens nevertheless saves the honor of the compositions, so we can still listen to the music with pleasure, because Tim gave his 110% and it’s hard to imagine anyone out there who can squeeze more out of themselves than Tim. Tim reigns in every section, just like at Judas Priest, with the difference that it’s not hard to say offhand that Schaffer made better use of Tim’s vocal abilities.
Both ballad-ish tracks, When The Eagle Cries and Hollow Man, are below-average fillers and don’t reach the ankles of tracks like the band’s atmospheric classics Watching Over Me or I Died For You. Hollow Man in particular sounds literally “hollow”. As for the convincing ballad writing that Iced Earth always set on fire so fantastically with Barlow on vocals, they come very close to it in the calm parts of the closing trilogy.
With the lyrics, Schaffer gets half a pass given his sincere patriotism. Those of you who don’t sweat it are enviable, but those who’ll build a certain barrier while listening to the lyrics, like me, have to find some way to get past it. “The Glorious Burden” is a very solid album at its core. It’s not exactly one that would have metal falling over itself for it, and it’s just as far from being bad. Something in between, like lukewarm water, which still brings a degree of disappointment. The factor that definitely saved Schaffer from a worse flop is Tim Owens. We have him and him alone to thank that “The Glorious Burden” remains fully listenable and a worthwhile investment, especially with the brilliance of that half-hour masterpiece in view.
Lineup
Tim Owens – vocals
Jon Schaffer – guitar
Ralph Santolla – guitar
James MacDonough – bass
Richard Christy – drums
Production
Jim Morris & Jon Schaffer
Tracklist
1. Declaration Day
2. When The Eagle Cries
3. The Reckoning (Don’t Tread On Me)
4. Attila
5. Red Baron/Blue Max
6. Hollow Man
7. Waterloo
8. Valley Forge
9. The Devil To Pay – Gettysburg (1863)
10. Hold At All Costs – Gettysburg (1863)
11. High Water Mark – Gettysburg (1863)
Running time: 75:45
