Controversial opinions on metal

I disagree. I was being far more controversial when I said that Voivod was more significant to metal's development than Mournful Congregation.
 
Iced Earth's best material is without Barlow.




Yea I said it, kill me.

I assume you mean the first two albums... the vocalists sucked. If you dont like Barlow, I can understand that, but those guys were terrible. Ripper didnt impress either.

Burnt Offerings, Horror Show, and Days of Purgatory (good stuff from the first two re-recorded with barlow) are their best stuff by miles.

(And Barlow sucked ass on The Crucible of Man)

Something Wicked This Way Comes

I'll take my apology now.
 
I don't see Out of the Abyss as an epiphany at all, but rather a culmination of that sound. In fact, the reason that Rick Fisher left the band was because Shelton desired to play faster, more aggressive material, and you begin to hear that on Open the Gates with "Heavy Metal to the World" and continuing on ("Death by the Hammer" on Mystification for example). OotA is a byproduct of aggravation with certain label issues as well and has a naturally more aggressive edge, with a lot of lyrics dealing with violence and weird fiction issues, whereas the preceding album focused more on the...uh, mystical aspects of the likes of Poe rather than Lovecraft. In that sense I don't feel that it is forced at all, as there is a clear building up to that. It's almost as though it's something they needed to get out of their systems as we seem them return to the more epic nature of Open the Gates-The Deluge in large part on The Courts of Chaos. All in all I think it's a bit of an underappreciated album due to the fact that it's perhaps the least prototypical of their 80s material.
 
I don't see Out of the Abyss as an epiphany at all, but rather a culmination of that sound. In fact, the reason that Rick Fisher left the band was because Shelton desired to play faster, more aggressive material, and you begin to hear that on Open the Gates with "Heavy Metal to the World" and continuing on ("Death by the Hammer" on Mystification for example). OotA is a byproduct of aggravation with certain label issues as well and has a naturally more aggressive edge, with a lot of lyrics dealing with violence and weird fiction issues, whereas the preceding album focused more on the...uh, mystical aspects of the likes of Poe rather than Lovecraft. In that sense I don't feel that it is forced at all, as there is a clear building up to that. It's almost as though it's something they needed to get out of their systems as we seem them return to the more epic nature of Open the Gates-The Deluge in large part on The Courts of Chaos. All in all I think it's a bit of an underappreciated album due to the fact that it's perhaps the least prototypical of their 80s material.

Excellent post!Very informative.
 
Do you live in Oppositeville or something? If there's anything that sticks out with Manilla Road it's how fucking inspired and logically intricate everything is.
 
I actualy really like something wicked but I could have done without the last 20 minutes of the album. It isnt that great and I rarely bother to listen to tracks 11-13.

The last 3 songs are some of my favorite from the album. I'd easily take them over tracks 2 and 4.
 
A top 3 or 5 MR albums is kinda hard to make, because I want to include pretty much all their albums. :p

There are a few I still need to listen to, but every Manilla Road album Ive heard so far, Ive liked.

The last 3 songs are some of my favorite from the album. I'd easily take them over tracks 2 and 4.

I agree with the first half of your statement. Birth of The Wicked, Prophecy, and The Coming Curse proves to be the peak of the album. I dont know about taking them over Melancholy and Watching Over Me, those are fucking two classics. Id have to think about that one.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

I'll take my apology now.

Im on the same page as you bro! :kickass:
 
I agree with the first half of your statement. Birth of The Wicked, Prophecy, and The Coming Curse proves to be the peak of the album. I dont know about taking them over Melancholy and Watching Over Me, those are fucking two classics. Id have to think about that one.

I think its moreso that those 2 songs have near identical structures, that Jon had used on Dark Saga songs and albums after SWTWC. Most of those tracks have become ones I simply can't listen to anymore, even if I enjoyed them at the time.

As far as the best Iced Earth albums go, I pretty much agree on Horror Show, Burnt Offerings and the Days of Purgatory compilation, but the last is interchangeable with the remastered Night of the Stormrider disc from their box set (forget its name).