Are you guys fucking serious? And I thought Jon couldn't sink any lower than doing The Glorious Burden! And to think I thought it couldn't get any worse than seeing Ripper completely RAPE Dracula and Melancholy live!
Before I start, I want to mention that I used to be a HUGE Iced Earth fan. I owned almost every album (Except stormrider w/ the original cover art) on vinyl, had every cd in various formats (s/t cd with both original cover art and second cover art... not the re-release though, stormrider with the first two covers, etc. etc.). I got posters, rare t-shirts... this was my band. Then ripper comes along and shits all over the legacy.
I got this about 3 days ago and I was going to write a review of it for the site, but to hell with that. Here's what i think, track by track:
Ten Thousand Strong - The only thing this is strong in is the sucking of the penis. First of all, the verse is so fucking similar to that of Declaration Day that it's shocking it was released. At the same time, i'm not surprised because Jon hasn't done a whole lot that is interesting since Horror Show (and even that was hit and miss). The vocals are horrible, and it sounds like they're going for the Blind Guardian mentality of "Let's see how many layers we can stack up here!" Fucking awful song. Next...
Prophecy - Iced Earth fans have done something to piss Jon off, and this is his way of telling them to go fuck themselves. This is an absolute abomination. My first thought (after WHAT THE FUCKING CHRIST IS JON DOING) was that this sounds like an awful cover band. All of the emotion and passion that made the original is gone. Ripper can NOT do these songs at all. Also, Jon "heavy-ing" up the song is just wrong. The changes have absolutely ruined this classic.
Birth of the Wicked - This is the song that is close to matching Ripper's vocals, and while they're not *terrible* here, they're just monotonous. There's none of the nuances that Matt added to the music to make it worth listening to.
The Coming Curse - Finally we have the glorious conclusion, and I would be lying if I said this one didn't almost make me cry. Every point where the song is supposed to reach a climax ("I am your anti-christ", etc) just sounds fucking whiny and completely ball-less. I can't even describe how horrible this is.
Normally, I accept that people will have differences in opinions on music, and I'll even go so far as to say I will respect that. In this case, no. There's no excuse for this or any reason to defend it. The new "Iced Earth" have effectively stripped all of the songs of their dynamic and left this garbage. Yup... fuck this band.
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