Diesel 11
As you scream into the web of silence...
I have a single CD version that also allocates “Transylvania” as a bonus track, but I’ve never played it the way it’s set up because I’m so used to it coming in after “Dragon’s Child”. The Iron Maiden original I’ve always thought was great but not perfect, and Iced Earth’s actually took it to the next level I was always waiting for and nailed it, so I really like it as part of the tracklist. When I get around to listening to it without it I’ll let you know what I think.
Have you heard any Symphony X before? If not, The Odyssey is a great place to start. It’s more guitar heavy than its predecessors, but by no means is it a worse album. The title track was the band’s peek and — I hate to say it, but — they’ve been on a downward spiral ever since.
This might be a me thing but personally I couldn’t care less if riffs are “stock” so long as they hit hard, and they certainly do in Horror Show. (Also some of the riffs are more creative than what Schaffer usually does, “Im-Ho-Tep”, for instance, is quite Middle Eastern).
Also, Larry Tarnowski’s solo in “Dragon’s Child” and Richard Christy’s drumming in the “Wolf” intro are so much more memorable than anything Dave, Janick, and Nicko did on NPFTD it’s not even funny.
A lot of the style he’s using naturally generates this, particularly adding the “-ə” sound (“uh”) to a lot of words (howə, thereə). As far as I can tell, something about the power of his voice means that when he comes to the end of a sentence or word or phrase, there needs to be an escape for him to come down, and the ə is how it comes out.
When I first started listening to Iced Earth I really hated Barlow, just sounded like a puffed-up macho wrestler dude. But the more I listened to him, the more I realized how tremendously talented he truly is. His highs are so much stronger than Halford, and far more seamless. His lows are more powerful than Hetfield’s, and his melodramatic style means that when he really throws in the emotions, he does it with so much conviction that the listener is left in awe. The one thing I can recommend — because this is how I fell in love with him myself — is to just listen to how he sings from a pure technical standpoint. Listen to how he brings his voice up to hit the high notes, and how much passion he brings to the stage as a whole. He’s easily my favorite singer after Bruce Dickinson nowadays.It was only a first impression listen, as are all my comments (unless it's an album I know), I'm writing them as I'm listening, he's definitely not a bad singer at all, maybe pub band was an unfair term. Maybe if they stay around a few rounds and I get more exposed my opinions will change, there's definitely been a few like that, Crimson Glory for example, that got a few uncharitable bitchy comments from me on the first listen yet I was buying the album after they got through a few more rounds
