Yax
Ancient Mariner
The chorus is the weak section. The verses are very cool.
Iced Earth
- Thread starter Forostar
- Start date
MrKnickerbocker
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Oh, for sure, vocals within the first :08 seconds.
I'm not really defending Schaffer, but the fact is that most of the members left on their own. Barlow because he couldn't tour, Smedley because he had to take care of his family at home and couldn't tour, there was this guitarist who was imprisoned, Christy left to join Howard Stern, Tarnowski to finish college, Hayes left because he wanted to continue playing with Ripper etc.
It seems that Schaffer pretty much gave up on American musicians, cause the last 3 he hired aren't American
It seems that Schaffer pretty much gave up on American musicians, cause the last 3 he hired aren't American
Unknown One
I see the ghost of navigators.
I think it's more the fact that they all hate Schaffer and the reasons they give as to why they left Iced Earth is to save a little face.
Black Wizard
Pleb Hunter
It does look nice, but the songs will be on the internet within a day of their first show. I've not been able to get a ticket to the Glasgow show and I'm not sure if I'd buy one of these as I'm not interested in vinyl, although there is still a functioning record player in the house. I bet these EPs won't be going cheap either.
MrKnickerbocker
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I've been listening to a lot of IE recently.
- Finally gave Live in Ancient Kourion a fair chance. I quite like Stu's take on "Dante's Inferno", which is a song I could never get into in the first place. Overall, it's a good recording, but not a "live" album. Sounds about as canned as my lentils.
- Dystopia is growing on me.
- Framing Armageddon has some amazing tracks, but way too much filler.
- Crucible of Man is mostly filler.
- The original recording of Night of The Stormrider is alright, though "Travel in Stygian" is quite a letdown compared to the Barlow version.
Overall, I like Stu and I think he'll be a good addition once he starts singing in his own voice and stops trying to imitate other people. Hope the new album is better than the last few.
- Finally gave Live in Ancient Kourion a fair chance. I quite like Stu's take on "Dante's Inferno", which is a song I could never get into in the first place. Overall, it's a good recording, but not a "live" album. Sounds about as canned as my lentils.
- Dystopia is growing on me.
- Framing Armageddon has some amazing tracks, but way too much filler.
- Crucible of Man is mostly filler.
- The original recording of Night of The Stormrider is alright, though "Travel in Stygian" is quite a letdown compared to the Barlow version.
Overall, I like Stu and I think he'll be a good addition once he starts singing in his own voice and stops trying to imitate other people. Hope the new album is better than the last few.
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That's my problem with it, what's the point of listening to it when it sounds just like a studio recording? Might as well listen to one of the albums.
Yea..even if they made it one album (two albums was pointless), it would still be mostly filler. And even Barlow couldn't save Crucible.
I like it, has an underground quality to it.
I listened to quite a few amateur videos from the show to compare, and only a few leads and vocal lines are re-recorded.
I read a lot of praise about Judas Priest's Unleashed In The East live album, but people tend to forget that Halford admitted to re-recording all his vocals in the studio.
MrKnickerbocker
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I understand the need for re-recording and tweaking some things on live albums, but there really is a limit. I sincerely doubt that there is a metal band out there who hasn't dubbed anything on their live albums. My issue with Kourion is that it just sounds completely sterile. The audience is almost non-existant, Stu sounds like he's singing in a bathroom stall, it just comes off as incredibly flat. Whether that was the nature of the recording or excessive dubbing, I cannot truthfully say. But like Mosh said, I'd rather just hear the studio albums.
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Unknown One
I see the ghost of navigators.
Agreed on most of this post. There's been a lot of filler since Glorious Burden. Although I think Greely is great on Stormrider and I think he is his best on Stygian. Yeah, he doesn't have the operatic range like Barlow does, but he gives a dark, atmospheric feel to the song. Yeah I guess Barlow can do that too (ala Burnt Offerings), but Greely does it in a way that it feels like you really are journeying through hell. Oh, and I think the AiA version of Stygian is fairly bad overall comapred to the original, especially with the lead guitar (although the Days of Purgatory is still pretty good).
Then again, I am a Stormrider fanatic as it's in my top 3 albums of all time and has my 3 favourite IE songs on it.
MrKnickerbocker
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It's not really his performance I have issue with, but the arrangement of the vocals and melody. When Barlow recorded it, he changed the flow of certain lines and I think they just sound so much better. In the Greely version, certain words are incredibly rushed and forced into musical passages, whereas Barlow stretches them out.
For reference:
"on your knees, the reaper awaits"
"lake of flames"
This may have been Jon's idea, after he listened to the song so many times, but either way, my ears are so attuned to the DOP version that hearing the original sounds incredibly weak. Greely's singing is alright on the track, but a little too "I'm-an-evil-demon-sitting-on-your-shoulder" for me. I like his vocals in the clean sections.
Unknown One
I see the ghost of navigators.
Ah yes, I get what you are saying now. The "rushedness" so to speak has never really bothered me and since I heard the original much before the DOP version, it's stuck with me ever since.
MrKnickerbocker
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Yeah, I'm sure it boils down to which you heard first/most often. Having listened to the DOP and Athens versions at least a million times, those little differences on the studio recording really stand out.
Unknown One
I see the ghost of navigators.
But we can both agree to Stygian being a kickass song, whatever version we happen to listen to.
Black Wizard
Pleb Hunter
Both these points are true. Both albums would be a lot more listenable if it wasn't for the random instrumental interludes every couple of songs. If Jon had cut that ridiculous storyline down to a bunch of songs from each album such as 'A Charge to Keep', 'The Clouding', 'When Stars Collide (Born is He)', 'Crucify the King' and 'Come What May'. Instead he went massively over the top and tainted the Something Wicked trilogy.
I love 'Night of the Stormrider' and consider it to be Iced Earth's best album even though it's Greely on vocals. He's not a particularly good vocalist but his style works really well with the songs IMO. Try listening to that album and the debut without thinking "This isn't Matt Barlow" and you might appreciate them better. It's the same problem that I think a lot of people have with Blaze Bayley's Iron Maiden albums: people compare him to someone else.
Forostar
Ancient Mariner
Well said sir.
MrKnickerbocker
clap hands
I like the album, I do. There are some great tracks on there and, as a whole, it works quite well. I don't even dislike Greely. I think he's as suitable for Stormrider as Ripper is for Framing Armageddon.
The issue is: Jon makes it so easy to compare people. With all of the re-recording they do, it's impossible not to compare the vocalists. Virtually every song from NOTS has been recorded with Barlow on vocals, mostly in-studio. I vastly prefer Barlow to Greely and since IE have provided album-ready versions of most Stormrider songs ft. Barlow, those are are the ones I'm going to listen to.