Sorry, I didn´t want it turn into a Slayer discussion, either.
But I think I have to tell you something about the situation here in Germany, maybe then you can understand my opinion better:
I don´t know how many of you people are into the German public situation, but this is a theme you cannot touch very easily in Germany:
1. Many people here are very sensitive concerning the Nazi Era and if ANY German band would have done a song like Angel Of Death or something similar about WWII or concentration camps, maybe even with German lyrics, it would be a national scandal. I´ll give you an example: Some people here in Germany even called Rammstein nazis, because they used some old film material from the olympic games in 1936 in the "Stripped" video. I think this is FUCKING BULLSHIT. There were only some old sports scenes in this video, but some radio stations even banned the song from their program. I don´t know who and how many did this, but I think this shows a little bit the situation, we are confronted with in our country. Rammstein themselves also made a clear statement on their third album that they would never support radical thoughts or anything like that ("Links 2 3 4"). It was much more a tribute for the German pioneer film maker Leni Riefenstahl, who did these scenes.
2. I am not the one to say someone shouldn´t make a statement about WWII or the nazi era, but the question is HOW you do it. I would never call Slayer nazis (though someone might wonder about things like "Slaytanic Wehrmacht" or the very strange letter "S" in the name writing on the Reign In Blood cover, which is very close to the SS symbol). But I know that they didn´t want to say "Hail Nazis". But everytime I read the lyrics of Angel Of Death I do not lose the feeling that this song was written just a little bit thoughtlessly. It seems that it´s all about bloodthirst and butchering people and not a serious statement about a very very serious thing. (And especially we german people must take this theme very seriously as you see in 1.)
There are better ways to treat this theme (Angel Dust´s Enlighten The Darkness album for example: cool sound, cool artwork and intelligent and sensible lyrics about the German history in WWII)
3. I am tired of discussing this. Let´s return to Iced Earth: I think Jon should get the possibility to do what he wants and I think he will be doing well. I am looking forward to hearing the album, cause it might be interesting to get Jon´s perspective about historical events.
I hope I didn´t offend too many Slayer fans with my opinion, as I like Slayer very much, too. I just think that some things could have done differently!
