Iced Earth

Tribute to the Gods

Iced Earth visit their roots...and rock them out!

Review Score:

(10/10)
Iced Earth is one of my all time favorite bands and I love each of their releases. So naturally when they put out recordings, I scramble after them. Tribute To The Gods is their next studio album but it's, as the title would suggest, a cd full of covers. Their official follow up to Horror Show(super great album, folks) is due out sometime in 2003. This will tide me over until then because these are some great covers. Take what you know about bands covering other band's songs and throw it out the window because Iced Earth are in top form on these songs. This collection isn't a thrown together, awful played, hurried through attempt to cash in on money.

These songs are really high quality and very very fun to listen to. Naturally, this isn't iced earth's best material and if you're a new fan just discovering them then I suggest get any of their albums(i would say Something Wicked This Way Comes or Horror Show). But then again, this isn't even their material so it's not going to be their best nor is it supposed to be. Sure they added stuff and put their very own iced earth twist on the songs but they stay close to the originals that I have heard.

Every song on here is heavy and contains IE's trademark rhythm guitar courtesy of the awesome Jon Schaffer. He actually sings a song on here, God Of Thunder. He does a really good job on this song. He doesn't have the range of Matthew Barlow (one of my all time favorite vocalists) but his voice is EXCELLENT. It's very heavy and gritty with an edge. It really fits the style of the song. Good job, Mr. Schaffer. Not only is he a super excellent guitar player, he has now proven himself to be a worthy lead singer. The rest of the songs are sang by the ever impressive Matthew Barlow who joined IE with their 3rd album, BURNT OFFERINGS(A metal classic). He brings his superb singing style to all the sings and they sound really great. It's hard to imagine some of these songs with a different singer but Matt makes it sound as if he originally sang them to begin with.

It's hard to top the original but Iced Earth come really close to doing it on some. The covers of Blue Oyster Cult and Iron Maiden and AC/DC sound so great and natural that it's almost scary. They are defiantly the best songs on this cd. However, EVERY song is great and I listen to and enjoy them all.

All in all, another amazing release by Iced Earth, a band that seems to be able to do no wrong. Be sure to look for the new iced earth cd, the follow up to 2001's Horror Show, in 2003.

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