ICED EARTH SURVIVOR 2018: Results -> A Question Of Heaven wins!

Are you satisfied with the results?

  • Total voters
    10
Voted for V, The Devil To Pay, Damien, Stand Alone, My Own Savior, Reaping Stone and The Coming Curse.
 
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Eliminated after Round 15:
Stand Alone - 8 votes
Disciples Of The Lie - 7 votes
Reaping Stone - 7 votes
Anthem - 6 votes

Promoted after Round 15:
Dystopia
V
Dark City
 
Damn, already voting between the remaining SWTWC-songs is tough... I like them all, but gotta go with something.

Voting for:
Hold at All Costs, High Water Mark
Dracula
Melancholy, Watching Over Me, 1776, Blessed are You, Prophecy
 
Devil to Pay
High Water Mark
(I want to keep Hold At All Costs in the game... well, at all costs)
Wolf
My Own Savior
1776
 
Voted for The Devil To Pay, Damien, Melancholy (Holy Martyr), My Own Savior, 1776 and The Coming Curse.
 
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Eliminated after Round 16:
1776 - 7 votes
High Water Mark - 5 votes
Watching Over Me - 5 votes
My Own Savior - 5 votes
Blessed Are You - 5 votes

Promoted after Round 16:
Burning Times
Melancholy (Holy Martyr)
Consequences

Days Of Purgatory and The Dark Saga join the game! Same rules apply for The Suffering Trilogy as for the Something Wicked Trilogy and Gettysburg Trilogy, and Days Of Purgatory also gets one promotion spot.
 
Hard to pick 11. So much good stuff. I love that old stuff on Purgatory. Winter Nights, Nightmares, Enter the Realm.
 
Hold At All Costs
Dracula
The Phantom Opera Ghost
Enter the Realm
Winter Nights
Nightmares
Cast In Stone
The Last Laugh
Depths of Hell
Scarred
 
I like the Days of Purgatory stuff. A lot of it is a bit obsolete since we have most of that material on Alive In Athens but I dig the raw intensity of the studio recordings. Hearing Barlow sing songs like Before The Vision really elevates a track that was somewhat forgettable on the original album. It almost makes me wish they redid the first two albums with Barlow on vocals. I also appreciate the debut more after hearing Barlow on those tracks. There's some good stuff there. The Purgatory songs are solid too, although Winter Nights is quite clearly the best of the bunch imo. So I'm voting for everything else.
 
This part rules!

Look up to the sky, see the moonlit night
The winter night sends shivers up your spine
But it's deep inside your mind that's where you may find inner demons and your desire

Don't give up, don't give up
Don't give up, don't you ever give up

*guitar lead*
 
Dark Saga - Great opener that shows off a catchier and more polished Iced Earth. This song is very direct, probably the most to the point thing they had written up until this point. Very representative of the whole album though.

I Died For You - Dark Saga/I Died For You is one of the great IE 1 - 2 punches. These two songs complement each other amazingly well. One of their best choruses. Lots of bass presence too.

Violate - After two midtempo songs, Violate takes the band back to its roots. Decent thrasher although somewhat generic. It gets a vote.

The Hunter - Love the drive in this song. Some really memorable leads and of course one of the best choruses in the IE canon. Barlow kills on this song.

The Last Laugh - One of the album's more forgettable tracks. Seems kinda unfinished (especially the way it fades in) and a bit forced. Like they had to write a song about this particular character. Just feels like obvious filler. It gets a vote.

Depths of Hell - Same problem as the previous song, very forgettable and filler-y. At least it has a somewhat memorable chorus. Still gets a vote.

Vengeance is Mine - Possibly a controversial opinion but I think this song is the only one on the album that captures the energy of the previous two albums. It's a way better and more exciting thrasher than Violate. Some great guitar leads too. A much-needed refresher after two meandering tracks.

Scarred - I love this song when it gets going, but it takes forever to get to that point. This song plods a lot and the transitions are pretty abrupt. Part of the problem is tempo. Those first few minutes really drag. The whole thing just feels like a mess with not many redeeming qualities. It is much better live though. Vote.

Slave To the Dark - This song succeeds at everything Scarred fails at. The intro is slow but it has a fantastic buildup with incredibly smooth transitions. The riffing is great and there are some solid leads. Awesome chorus. Barlow's performance at the end is extremely intense. He totally sells it.

A Question of Heaven - I have to say I went into this expecting to make a controversial vote for A Question of Heaven, but I have a hard time resisting it. I think I still slightly prefer Slave to the Dark, but it's close. There are some great buildups in this track and Barlow gives a fantastic performance. It plods in some moments and it is far from the pinnacle of Iced Earth, but I can at least see the appeal. I also really like the angelic vocals. I won't vote for it, but I'm not sure if it would be my pick to promote from the Suffering trilogy. I'd like to see both this and Slave progress to the finals.

This is controversial, but Dark Saga is by far my least favorite of the classic Iced Earth albums. It's not a bad album but the songwriting really took a dive here for some reason. It's very much a transitional album and they improved this style of songwriting pretty quickly. I also find the sound to be way too polished here and a lot of the songs feel halfbaked. Even the best songs suffer from this to a certain degree. I can still go back to Something Wicked every now and then, but my exposure to Dark Saga material is exclusively through Alive In Athens because at least there the songs have more energy to them. The one biggest positive of Dark Saga is Barlow. You can tell he spent time between Burnt Offerings and Dark Saga honing his technique and improving his vocals. His voice sounds much more full. There's also more character. There are some songs on here that only work because of his vocals.
 
@Mosh nailed everything on the head. The Dark Saga is a radically mixed bag - there's a few classic tracks, some very good songs saved by Barlow's performance, and a bunch of filler that occasionally dips into the worst the band has to offer. The Hunter, Slave, Heaven, and Vengeance are all-time classics and I'd rank them among the best of the best, I Died for You is just a tier below them and I guess the title track is alright.

Everything else, especially that one-two terrible punch of Last Laugh and Depths of Hell, is just flat, boring, and uninspired.

Voting for:

- all of the Days of Purgatory songs except Winter Nights (which is amazing, holy hell I forgot how good that was!)
- Dark Saga
- Violate
- Last Laugh
- Depths of Hell
- Scarred
 
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Credits:
Jon Schaffer - rhythm guitar & vocals
Randall Shawver - lead guitar
Matt Barlow - vocals
Brent Smedley - drums on songs 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 21
James MacDonough - bass on songs 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 21
Guests:
Dave Abell - bass on songs 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
Mike McGill - drums on songs 10, 11, 13, 16
Richey Secchiari - drums on songs 3, 4, 7, 8, 14, 18, 19
Rodney Beasley - drums on songs 12, 15, 17, 20

  1. Enter The Realm - OK intro, but probably wouldn't have fit on the debut.
  2. Colors - Better song with a proper singer like Barlow.
  3. Angels Holocaust - Jon turned up the choirs too much. Better on AIA.
  4. Stormrider - Jon overdid his vocals here, he's not that good of a singer.
  5. Winter Nights - Cool song, would've been one of the better ones on the debut, although it was meant for Night Of The Stormrider.
  6. Nightmares - This one was meant for the debut. Cool song, would've fit in there.
  7. Before The Vision - Better song with Barlow, although Greely also did a good job.
  8. Pure Evil - Better on AIA.
  9. Solitude - Was this even re-recorded?
  10. Funeral - Same goes for this one.
  11. When The Night Falls - One of rare instances where I'm not sure if Barlow improved a song. It took me years to get used to the different chorus. Could go either way with this one tbh.
  12. Burnt Offerings - I don't like the changed intro. Inferior to the original version.
  13. Cast In Stone - This is Written On The Walls with different lyrics. Sounds kinda awkward because of it, but at least it's Barlow singing instead of Gene Adam. OK song.
  14. Desert Rain - Better on AIA.
  15. Brainwashed - Jon turned up his vocals again here :facepalm:
  16. Life & Death - Nothing of note here. Not even Barlow can save this song.
  17. Creator Failure - I honestly don't know if they even changed anything here.
  18. Reaching The End - Better song with Barlow, although Greely also did a good job.
  19. Travel In Stygian - Better on AIA. Barlow overdid the falsetto on the verses IMO.
  20. Dante's Inferno - I honestly don't know if they even changed anything here.
  21. Iced Earth - Too slow. No one seems to be able to replicate the original vocals. Despite their awfulness, attempting to change the vocal lines in any way rarely works, and 4 different singers have tried.
Overall: This release is pretty much obsolete thanks to AIA. Of the 21 tracks, 12 songs appeared on AIA, 2 are completely new songs, 1 is a completely new intro, and of the 6 remaining songs that aren't new and didn't appear on AIA, 3 are interludes, 1 is an instrumental and two are almost the worst songs on their albums.
Best song(s): Winter Nights, Nightmares
 
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