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In some of the best music news I've heard in a long while, Jon Schaffer recently announced that Matt Barlow is rejoining Iced Earth. I have nothing against Tim Owens whatsoever. He's a great vocalist. As far as I am concerned, however, Iced Earth is not complete without Matt Barlow on vocals. They are once again whole.

Over the past few weeks I've been quite the "consumer whore," as Gene would say. With my recent transition back to bachelor status and a nice raise at work, I've had a lot more cash laying around. Because of this, I decided to splurge on some music that's caught my attention. Over said few weeks, I've picked up three albums by Amorphis, two by Meshuggah, and one each by Megadeth, Killswitch Engage, Demiricous, and Iced Earth.

Out of all of the albums I picked up, the Iced Earth album ("Framing Armageddon") was the only one I had any plans on picking up. It's the first half of a sci-fi-ish narrative Jon Schaffer has been brewing up for some years now. He laid the foundation of the story quite a while back with the "Something Wicked" trilogy, and things have come to fruition. I was kind of thrown off by the style of the album. It has a lot of the signature Iced Earth elements like Jon Schaffer's robotic-arm triplet-riffing and a strong vocal presence, but the music has a distinctly different feel in many places. I'm not saying it's bad, but its not what I expected out of Iced Earth. Since the story is divded into two parts on separate CD releases, it's my guess that the first CD is a more subdued lead-in, kind of the calm before the storm. We'll see once the second half is released I guess.

I'm really digging the two Nordic components of my purchases - Amorphis and Meshuggah. The former used to be much more of a doom/deah metal band, but they've expanded on the typical musical palette of those genres greatly and incorporated clean vocals and an assortment of typically non-metal instruments (such as saxophones, flutes, and sitars). The result is a very cool blending of styles, and it's quite pleasure to listen to. Meshuggah, on the other hand, could probably be quite painful to listen to if you weren't into their particular way of doing things. They're abrasive, intense, and their compositional style is downright weird. The current last.fm description probably says it better than I ever could.

Among the band's most recognizable qualities are lead guitar player Fredrik Thordendal's abrasive, chaotic and dischordant solos, singer Jens Kidman's vocals, which resemble manic screams and shouts; the churning, dissonant rhythm guitars and the polymetric drum beats. In a typical Meshuggah song, drummer Tomas Haake plays two separate rhythms: a standard 4/4 beat with his hands, and a completely different metrical subdivision with his feet. The guitars mostly follow the bass drum work, creating an awkwardly pulsating rhythmic pattern to work as the basis of the song.

To give an example, the main riff of the song "New Millennium Cyanide Christ" from their 1998 album Chaosphere follows the aforementioned blueprint. Haake beats a rather slow 4/4 rhythm with his hands, while the bass drums and guitars play a repetitive 23/16 rhythm pattern on top of it. As the subdivided pattern is repeated, the pattern's accents shift to different beats on each repetition. After repeating the 23/16 pattern five times, a shorter 13/16 pattern is played once. These patterns sum up to 128 16th notes, which equals exactly 8 measures in 4/4 meter.

Speaking of "New Millenium Cyanide Christ" - its music video has to be one of the funniest I've ever seen. A band air-guitaring to their own song on their tour bus. Genius idea. Anyway, I digress. Dispite its chaotic nature, I find their stuff quite easy to work to. I found myself getting quite a bit done the other day when I was listening to it at work. Strange.

The remaining three albums have been outshined by the aforementioned works, but I'll listen to them more eventually. The new Megadeth CD ("United Abominations") is pretty good. I've come to expect their newer stuff to be much more hit-and-miss than their defining works, and this is no different really. There are some pretty fine moments on the CD, and some others that are less stellar. Overall, I'd have to say that its more consistently better than its predecessor ("The System Has Failed"), though. I'm completely in love with Demiricous' style. A lot of people seem to dog them because they sound a lot like Slayer, but what's so bad about that? They have certain aspects that sound similar, but overall I think there's enough differences to keep them from sounding completely derivative. They've got a new album coming out in a few weeks, which probably means my trend of CD purchases won't stop soon. The Killswitch Engage CD I picked up has really been eclipsed by all the other stuff I've picked up. I'll listen to it more, I swear!

I was checking out the RSS feed for Metal Underground today, and I saw two stories that caught my attention. First, Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth said that work on the Something Wicked concept album has been scheduled, and that it will most likely be a two disc set. He wants to create a defining work, something like Pink Floyd's "The Wall" or Queensryche's "Operation: Mindcrime." Iced Earth has already established themselves pretty well, so if they succeed in topping their previous efforts, the work will be nothing short of spectacular.

Speaking of Queensryche and Mindcrime, the other post I read this morning related to a new album that continues the Mindcrome story and ties up some of the loose ends left in the story. This should be quite cool as well. I don't know if they needed to do this album though. I'm a big fan of their music, but it seems as though this might be an attempt to try to get themselves back into the spotlight. I guess we'll see sometime in early 2006.

Yup, there's a reason Iced Earth is one of my favorite bands... because they rule. Inspired by Matt's recent purchase of some Iced Earth CDs, I decided to fill out my Iced Earth collection and I picked up Days of Purgatory and Night of the Stormrider. Stormrider is the only studio LP of theirs that I didn't already have. Purgatory is a two disc set of some of their older songs that have been re-recorded and remixed with Matt Barlow on vocals. The sound quality of the older albums (Stormrider included) sucked pretty bad, so the remix and remastering sounds a lot better. In addition, Matt Barlow is like, 6.02E23 times better than the older singers, so hearing some of the older jams with his voice made them sound like, well, 6.02E23 times better.

I really haven't been up to anything noteworthy recently... I've been working on my project at work pretty regularly, and the data collection part is deployed across all of the Liquid Web servers, but I don't want to deploy it any further than that until theres a secure and automated update system in place. Having to log into a ton of servers to upgrade monitoring crap is a pain in the ass. I've already had to do it once this weekend when I broke something, which sucks. It's running pretty well though... The average load on the collection machine is at or below what it was with the old system, even though it's collecting a ton more data. Works for me.

Yesterday I was goofing around with some more guitar stuff on the computer... I had the signal output from my pedalboard plugged into the external drive thingy that's attached to the Audgiy card in my Windows box, and I was playing with some of the internal EAX effects that the Audigy card brings to play. There's a lot of neat stuff in there, and Phil will be happy to hear that I was playing around with the delay effects quite a bit. Kind of a weird thing to get used to playing along with, since there's kind of a implied beat that is generated by the delay effect, and straying from that makes things sound really weird. I wanted to record some of it, but the thing didn't really seem to want to record properly, so I didn't get any of it. Oh well.

Being one of my favorite bands, I had anticipated seeing Iced Earth for quite a while. I caught about the last 10 minutes of one of their shows when they opened up for Megadeth at St. Andrews a while back, and that 10 minutes planted the seed that made me want to look into them more. I did, and the rest is history. I went to the show with Jon, Matt, and Alex. We did the fasionably late thing, and missed the great majority of the first band's set. That's fine, because they didn't sound that great.

I'm not sure what the second band's name was, but when they said it, I couldn't hear exactly what they said. Chalk that one up to metal-show-ears. We think it's something like Bound or Mound or Pound. Whatever it is, they were pretty sweet. I don't know if they were local or were on the whole tour, because they're not listed on the Iced Earth site. Oh well. They kinda made us nervous for their first song... the singer came out and just started belting out the ball-grabbing shrieks that can turn your ears to jelly in no time, but that was the only song he did that in. They sported the 5-man power lineup - a singer, two guitarists, bass player, and a drummer. The drummer kinda looked like the main guy from Radiohead, which was kinda funny. They had a really heavy sound, and were very tight and crisp, which caught our attention right away. They did a decent amount of traded leads between the two guitarists, and they did some cool harmonies as well. There were also a few songs with really cool off-beat rhythms, which is always neat when you can pull it off, and they did. I'd like to find out exactly who they were, because they were really solid, and I'd definitely check them out further. Grade: B+

The third band was Evergrey. From what they said and what I saw on their website, they're from Sweden. The first thing we noticed was how freakin tall the frontman was... the dude had to be at least 6'5". The guitar looked like a freaking toy in his hands. They had a really cool sound. They could thrash with the best of them, but they also had a very melodic side, which is very cool. There were a few songs where they would combine both aspects - opening up with a insanely fast sequence, then calming down and doing some really cool melodic stuff. They also had a good amount of dual lead responsibilities between their two guitarists, with a lot of harmonies. Since I know who they are, I'll definitely give these guys some further attention. Grade: B+

The last in a long series of opening bands was Children of Bodom. They were pretty sweet musically, but their singer/lead guitarist had a vocal style that grated on me pretty heavily. It just sounded like a bark, and he didn't vary it at all. He should definitely stick to his guitar playing, which was very sweet. He did tons of crazy lead stuff, and in most of their songs, did some awesome harmonized lead lines with their keyboard player, who was also pretty damn good. I may check these guys out further, but the constant barking vocals kinda turned me off. These guys had a pretty large following in attendance, which kinda surprised me. A good portion of the crowd was chanting for them before they came out. It must be pretty cool to be a Finnish band having people chant your name in Detroit before you come out on stage. Grade: B

After 4 opening bands, Iced Earth came out, probably around 11:00pm. They opened up with Declaration Day from The Glorious Burden. Following that (in no particular order) were Angels Holocaust, Violate, Vengeance is Mine, Burning Times, Melancholy, Dracula, When the Eagle Cries, Greenface, and Red Baron. They closed out the 'main' portion of their show with the Something Wicked This Way Comes trilogy (Prophecy, Birth of the Wicked, and The Coming Curse). They finished that portion of the show and said goodnight at about 12:15, so we knew there was more in store. We weren't disappointed. They came back out shortly after, with Jon Schaffer in a Confederate soldier's jacket, holding a Les Paul with a Confederate flag painted on it. Ralph Santolla (I assume it's him) had a Union Jacket on, with the US flag of that time painted on his Les Paul. They proceeded to play the entire Gettysburg Trilogy (The Devil to Pay, Hold At All Costs, High Water Mark), which was a treat. They closed out the show with Iced Earth, which is pretty much a staple as far as I know. It was insane though - somewhere during one of the changes between a heavy part and a slower melodic part, Tim Owens belted out one of his trademark ball-grabbing screams, but he held the note for at least 30 seconds. It was insane. Everyone in the band was just standing there looking at him. Jon Shaffer was just staring at him with this awestruck smile, Richard Christy stood up in his drum kit and did the Wayne's World "We're not worthy" thing about half-way through, and the bass player (James MacDonough I assume) brought up a bottle of water and put it next to his mouth after about 20 seconds of the wail. It was great.

Overall, I think Iced Earth played very well, but the mix seemed a bit off from our vantage point. Jon Schaffer's guitar was a tad loud, and Ralph Santolla's guitar was a bit quiet, but only in the higher ranges. When he let a power chord fly, it smacked you in the stomach, but his leads sounded quiet to me. Also, the bass drums on the drum kit seemed too quiet, but the rest of the drums were fine. Tim Owens was at a perfect volume, and he was very clear and discernable, which is a credit to his voice. My suspicions about Jon Schaffer have to be true after seeing him play his triplet-riffing madness style in person - he's either got a bionic right arm or he's superhuman in someway. He played every song flawlessly, nailing every part that would turn the right arms of mere mortals into jelly in 10 seconds flat. Tim Owens sounded awesome. I had my reservations on how well his voice would make the Matt Barlow era songs sound, but he did an excellent job with them. The older songs (pre-Matt Barlow) sound like they were made for him, so there was no problems there. The song selection was really cool, and seeing both the Something Wicked and Gettysburg trilogies played in their entriety was a treat. As sweet as it was, I'm not convinced that the Gettysburg trilogy was a great choice for a live show. They played all of the orchestration and the miscellaneous sound effects as a track, while the band played the rather simple (for the most part) rhythms and leads. Owens nailed the vocal parts for it, but in my opinion, those three songs would be better suited to stay in their CD form, where they're nothing short of excellence. All in all, the show was very sweet, and well worth the 4 opening bands and the 6 hours of standing. Grade: A+

Yup, fell asleep on the couch watching Family Guy again. I was supposed to do laundry tonight, but alas, it doesn't look like that was meant to be. Instead I slept, and then rummaged all over my room looking for a piece of paper with the PID for my Student Loan account with Uncle Sam, only to later find out that the information was saved in the form on my computer, rendering my 45 minutes of searching and frustration completely unnecessary. Fun.

For anybody that is cool and even for those that are not, there are two sweet concerts rolling around Southeast Michigan way in the coming months, and yours truely will definitely be there sacrificing my hearing up on the altair of sweet music in order to see them. Dream Theater is playing the State Theater in Detroit on March 22 and Iced Earth is playing Harpos on April 24. Dream Theater is touring by themselves and playing a two-set show with an intermission, so that should be crazy sweet. Not too many bands can play for that long, but they definitely can. I may be more pumped about the Iced Earth Show though... I've only seen them briefly in a live setting, at one of the Megadeth shows I caught in 2001 before Megadeth broke up. That's what got me interested in them, and it's all downhill from there... ;) It should be sweet to see them, and even cooler since they're headlining. I can't wait.

Jon Schaffer and the boys of Iced Earth are back, and back with a vengeance. There's a bit of a new feel to the band since long time vocalist Matt Barlow left the band to pursue interests outside of music. Matt's departure let Schaffer pursue the vocalist he's been wanting to work with for a while now - former Judas Priest vocalist Tim "Ripper" Owens. For those of you that weren't aware, the movie "Rockstar" was loosely based around Owen's rise from coverband singer to the full time vocalist of JP. Anyways, I digress. Owens vocals give the band a bit of a different vibe, but their power is still very much intact, as evidenced with their latest release, "The Glorious Burden." From what I have read, Schaffer (the principal songwriter and founder of Iced Earth) is quite pissed about the youth of America not having a shred of a clue about history and how important it is to where we are as a country and society. He decided to make "The Glorious Burden" with the intent to wake some people up to the fact that history is not boring and that is relevant to our lives today. I'll be the first to say that my knowledge of history isn't the strongest, but at least I've heard of all of the subjects he discusses in the songs. After hearing these songs, I must say that my interest in learning more about some of the subject matters he delves into is heightened a bit. Mostly the Gettysburg stuff. The version of the album I bought is comprised of two CDs - the first contains 11 songs on varying topics, the second holds the Gettysburg trilogy. On to the song reviews!

Star Spangled Banner - Everybody's heard the song before. If you haven't, you're not an American, and/or you're living under a rock. This is a pretty straightforward rendition of our Anthem, with a Metal twist. They didn't go all nuts and solo all over the song, which I definitely appreciate. They stick to the song, but add some nice harmonies and fill in the background with some big open power chords. Simple and powerful.

Declaration Day - This song segues in from the end of the Star Spangled Banner with a galloping double bass line, and after a few measures the Ripper lets rip for our first taste of the new Iced Earth. The song is rooted around the Declaration of Independence, and lyrically is a pretty powerful interpretation of the views of the time. Musically it's pretty strong... the drums are pounding throughout in typical Iced Earth fashion with a constant driving beat, and there's a cool harmony going throughout the bridges and choruses. The solo is pretty sweet, and rides over a a solid double-bass run. Good Jam.

When The Eagle Cries - This is a pretty big departure from the normal Iced Earth sound, but I don't care. The song is powerful and struck home as soon as I heard it. It's about the 9/11 disaster, and for anybody who watched those buildings burn and then collapse on TV or in person, it'll bring back the memories. Schaffer's patriotism is obvious in this song. The verses are very quiet and subdued, speaking of redemption and national pride laid over a solitary acoustic guitar. The choruses absolutely explode with sound - the drums kick in, bass and guitars explode, and a multitude of voices unleash for the chorus. The sound is huge. It gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it.

The Reckoning (Don't Tread On Me) - In my interpretation, this is a continuation of the theme begun by When The Eagle Cries, only but this focuses on the aftermath where the men of evil get what's coming to them - a good swift ass kicking in the name of Freedom and Justice. This song is an ass kicker too... The rhythm is absolutely crushing. Schaffer unleashes his typical triplet explosion and everyone else in the band follows suit. The chorus has kind of an offbeat feel, and throughout the song Owens gives everyone a demonstration of how high he can take his voice and stay in control. The bridge has a hella-fast double-bass/guitar run that is also hella-cool. In the middle of the song there is a slow part that adds some tension to the song, and after that they bust back into the ass kicking.

Greenface - This song doesn't seem to have a direct tie-in to historical events like most of the others, not that I can see anyways. It seems dedicated to the armed forces in general, more specifically the ground troops that kick ass in the name of Freedom. The song kicks a lot of ass too. The drum work on this song is killer. Hats off to Richard Christy for this one - the double bass is especially awesome. The rest song is quite killer too. The rhythm is heavy as hell, and the solo is pretty rad too. There's one lick that they play to tie together the verses that I just sounds friggin sweet. It seems quite simple, like a fast trip up and back down a scale, but it sounds really cool, to my ears at least. It's kind of a short tune, and it doesn't ever slow down. This is probably my favorite song off of the first disc right now.

Attila - This song describes conflict between the barbarians and the Romans waaay back in the day, and more specifially, Attila the Hun, leader of the barbarians. I don't claim to have a clue on what happened back then, so I'll just talk music... :) The song opens up with a melodic section with some cool guitar harmonies and choral vocals with a chant kind of vibe, then the song busts into a typical Iced Earth triplet-rhythm fest. The choruses have sweet double-bass run with a broken and deliberate lead line on the guitar. After the first chorus, there's a vocal standoff between the barbarians and Romans that is pretty neat. Owens uses a growling voice for the barbarians, and a very choral sound for the romans, similar to the vocals found at the beginning of the song. Very neat. Throughout that first chorus and through the vocal standoff, and continuing through a cool little instrumental section after the standoff, Christy is going around Mach 2 on the double-bass. Insane. The song finishes with another iteration of verse/chorus. Sweet Jam.

Red Baron / Blue Max - This tune is about (duh) the Red Baron, the pilot that decimated the British in the air in World War I. The rhythm in this song is really cool with a definite Iron Maiden feel. It has a pattern in the low registers and another that mirrors it in the higher registers. Very cool sound. There's an extended part in the middle where the two guitars harmonize over a very stacatto rhythm, and it's very Iron Maiden-esque. Another insane double bass run follows the harmonies, and then the solo kicks in. The other new member of Iced Earth, guitarist Ralph Santolla, rips here. His solos throughout the album are sweet, but this one is memorable, but a bit brief. This song rocks, but at times Owens does the "holy crap someone just grabbed my BALLS!!!" vocals where he just goes from a normal vocal range all the way up to his upper limit in a short time. That sound gets a little old, but other than that, the song is sweet.

Hollow Man - In my opinion, this is the weakest song on the album. Unlike all of the other songs, there's just nothing that grabs me and makes me want to listen. Just seems kinda tired and average. Oh well, you win some, you lose some, right?

Valley Forge - This song seems to be about Jon Schaffer's disgust with the way our society has lost sight of who we are and more to the point, where we came from. He paints a portrait of a soldier at Valley Forge, broken and bloodied, but still willing to do anything for the cause he believes in. A pretty idealized vision, but a just one nonetheless. The music for the song has a cool feel - Schaffer uses an acoustic guitar while describing the soldier and his situation, and then brings in the metal when referring to the modern age. The music in both of these flavors is pretty straightforward, but the solos are what really shines. There are two solos, one long and one short. Santolla totally shreds here. It took me a few listens to catch how sweet they are, but now they're what I wait for when I listen to the song.

Waterloo - This song describes the battle at Waterloo where Napoleon suffered defeat at the hands of the British, Russians, Prussians, and Austrians (or so the song says... again, I'm clueless). The song gives an account of the battle in linear fashion, describing the various advances and strategies that were used in that battle. Very cool. The music is quite sweet too... the main rhythm is an offbeat triplet fest with an omnipresent guitar melody that makes it way through both verse and chorus and only ceases for a short time during the bridge. Very cool tune.

When The Eagle Cries (Bonus Unplugged Version) - This version of When The Eagle Cries was on "The Reckoning" single that Iced Earth released a few weeks back. It's a totally acoustic version of its namesake, and I was quite thrown off when I heard it the first time when I bought the single. It quickly grew on me though. It's not terribly different from the plugged-in version of the song, except that this is the probably the last time you'll hear Matt Barlow's voice distinctly in an Iced Earth song. He lends his characteristic bellow to the background vocals during the chorus, and it sounds perfect there. I was actually a little disappointed when I heard the plugged-in version because he's not featured there as far as I can tell. His voice was too perfect for the part, and he wasn't there. Oh well, I'm not in Iced Earth, so I guess I don't have any input.

I'm going to take a break from describing the songs to lay down a bit of background. The Gettysburg trilogy is a 32 minute opus about the three days of the battle of Gettysburg. It's a pretty epic score, and it's probably the most anticipated part of the album for me. I've known for a while that Jon Schaffer is a very passionate songwriter and will accept nothing short of his vision. So when I heard that he was putting together a 30 minute opus with complete orchestral accmompanyment, I was instantly excited. Well, the songs don't disappoint. They're very similar to Waterloo in the fact that they give a narration describing the events of the battle, but there is also a very human element to the lyrics as well. I'm going to try to do these songs justice in my descriptions, but I will fail. I simply don't have the words to describe them. The only way to appreciate them fully is to pop the CD into a good stereo and then sit back and listen. Schaffer includes his comments on the songs intermingled with the lyrics in the CD book, and it's very cool to read along while listening to the songs. It paints a very cool picture. I'll be pulling a lot of my description from Schaffer's comments, because again, I'm not the expert here.

Gettysburg - I. The Devil to Pay - This song opens up with another rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, only with instruments more native to the time - flute, snare drum, bagpipes, and a banjo. Once that has completed, the narration begins over an acoustic guitar with a flute (?) lending a melody. Owens describes the scene that will take place over those three days, and then the music changes and the events of the first day come to focus. The first thing I noticed is the very deliberate pace to the song. There are no double-bass or triplet-rhythm heroics here - very straightforward and constant, much like an army marching. The orchestra is prevalent as soon as this music change takes place. There's a brief lead section with the guitar, but then Iced Earth falls into the rhythm role while the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra steps in front and center. The choruses in this section have a very big, full sound that gave me goosebumps when I first heard it. This section describes Confederates initial attack upon the town, the Union's valiant defense under heavy fire, and the demise Union General John Reynolds. The music stops briefly and is replaced by a rolling snare drum, and a solitary guitar playing a version of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." This is Schaffer's tribute to Reynolds. The solitary guitar turns into two harmonized guitars after a few iterations through the melody, and after another couple iterations, the orchestra makes its presence felt yet again. This is a very powerful point in the song for me. More goosebumps here. The melee returns with a cannon blast and a more focused rhythm line and an extended orchestration portraying the continuing battle between the Union and Confederate armies. The narration returns with the same musical feel as in the first half of the song, and it describes the overwhelming of the Union army and their eventual retreat from the town. The chorus then plays again, and both the song and day one of the battle close out.

Gettysburg - II. Hold At All Costs - This song opens up with a passage showing the human aspects of the conflict - two friends on opposite sides of the battle, and their struggle to retain both their loyalty to themselves and their nations. The rest of this song describes a single portion of the second day's conflicts - the 20th Maine's defense of the Confederate attack at Little Round Top. The music underlying the narration is just Iced Earth and is again very straightforward and direct, although Schaffer does add some of his trademark triplet-riffing to the mix. Because of this, it's probably the most 'Metal' out of the three, but by no means the most powerful or intense. The choruses again have a very large sound, as though an entire army is singing along with Owens. The orchestra returns after the first chorus for an extended instrumental section, but then falls away when the narration returns and Schaffer begins riffing again. This portion outlines Col. Chamberlain's bold strategy to charge the Confederate army after they've run out of ammunition and defeat is near. Both desperation and determination are portrayed in this section quite well. The chorus plays again, and the song ends with the sounds a large cannon volley. This sounds very cool on a nice stereo.

Gettysburg - III. High Water Mark - The cannon volley at the end of Hold At All Costs is translated into an army of tom Drums at the beginning of the song while both Iced Earth and the orchestra lay down an ominous track that serves to foreshadow the events of the third day of battle. The music then stops and is replaced by a conversation between General Lee and his second in command, General James Longstreet. Lee describes his plan to charge the Union line at its center, while Longstreet shows his opposition for the plan. The music then resumes with a very cool harmonization between a solitary guitar and the string section of the orchestra, which builds into a very moving piece of music, which sets a very appropriate mood for the descrption of Pickett's Charge. The pace of the drums quickens over time, much as the pace of charging armies quickens as they get closer and closer to clashing in battle. It's very easy for me to imagine soldiers charging across the open plain, with musket blasts and cannonfire erupting all around them. Very moving piece of music. The pace and feel of the music change many times over the next few minutes corresponding to the events of the battle. The music again becomes more deliberate and focused, corresponding to the final Confederate charge and eventual defeat. Following the defeat, the msuic and lyrics depict a remorseful General Lee after he realizes the folly of his plan and the massacre that ensued. The music after this section is very powerful, and, in my eyes, serves to accentuate the grave struggles and sacrifices so many men made for the causes they believed in.

Holy crap. I've been typing for like three hours now. Not many things can make me stay focused like this, but Mr. Schaffer and the guys in Iced Earth have given me one of those things. The highlight of the album for me was defintely the Gettysburg trilogy, but the rest of the songs save Hollow Man are all excellent as well. I would have paid my $20 for either of the discs in the the package, but getting them both is a treat. This album is definitely their most ambitious venture musically, and they nailed it. Nothing short of spectacular. I was leary of how I would like Tim Owens as the voice of Iced Earth, but I'm nothing but pleased. He fits in perfectly. I'm very exicted for the future of Iced Earth. I'm sure that we'll hear many more great things out of these guys in the coming years. Hats off to you guys! Grade: a whole-hearted A+.

Yah title, you said it... one more day of the cursed midnight shift then it's back to sweet normalcy for another 6 weeks. I guess the one good thing about my schedule is that I go to sleep when I get home, so there is plenty of time after I wake up before I go to work, so no alarm clock! Oh how I hate alarm clocks. This round of midnights has been especially boring... I'm literally playing a few hours of video games a night just to keep myself occupied. Help desk tickets have been rather slow, and phones have been dead, so there's not much going on for me.

I'm still rocking out to the Glorious Burden with a fury... this album rocks. I've listened to it quite a lot now, which is close to the "shit load of listens" that I like to have under my belt before I review an album. I'll probably post the review tonight, since all I'll be doing is playing Command and Conquer if tonight follows the same pattern as the last 6 nights.

I've been trying to post new random pics in the gallery ever couple of days or so, so check 'em out. Who am I kidding, they're boring, and so is my life. Who out there is willing to help bring some color to my existence?

Ok, that title was an attempt to be clever... new friends are not a burden. Today marked the day that the newest Iced Earth release hit the shelves. The Glorious Burden is the name of the album, and it's most definitely glorious. I'll post a full review once I've had the chance to listen to it about 40 more times, but in a few words, the album is awesome. I would say that this is their best album to date. Take your $20 and go buy it now. Yes, you!

I also had the pleasure of hanging out with some new people tonight. I had a great time! Thanks to Kate and friends for getting me out of the apartment! I hope we can do it again sometime!

Edited on 1/23/04: I've noticed random visitors looking for reviews of the Glorious Burden... if you want to see my review, go here.

Got a few disjoint musical notes here. Most people won't give two shits about this stuff, but its my site, live with it. First, I went out and bought the single for the new Iced Earth album tonight. It's pretty cool, but nothing extraordinary. I do believe they're holding out the extraordinary stuff for the release of the real album - "The Glorious Burden" - so I'm not all that disappointed. There are four songs on the disc, with two typical Iced Earth metal-fests, and two slower songs, one of which is completely unplugged. I really wouldn't think of IE making an unplugged tune, but this is more of a ballad-y tune, so it's cool. This is the first material I've heard with the new vocalist Tim "Ripper" Owens, formerly of Judas Priest. He's not the same vocalist that Matt Barlow was, but he does add a lot of flavor to the songs. Speaking of Matt, he hasn't completely severed his ties with the band - he sings backing vocals on some of the songs on the single. Even though he's off doing his part for our country, it would be cool for him to get back in the studio with IE and have both vocalists rip on a few tracks.

I also picked up an Iron Maiden disc tonight when I got the IE single. I picked up their official greatest hits disc - "Edward The Great". After seeing them in concert this summer and enjoying it, I figured I should pick up some of their stuff. This seemed like a good place to start. I recognize a bunch of the tunes from the concert this summer. Great stuff. They aren't total metal like I'm used to hearing in bands like Metallica, Anthrax, or Slayer, but it's very easy to see how they paved the way for the next generation of metal bands. I'll be picking up more Maiden albums soon.

I read something today that kinda suprised me, and I was pretty pumped about it. About two years ago, one of my favorite bands at the time, Fear Factory, broke up. I was bummed. Well, I just read that they're back together sans guitarist Dino Cazares. I'm hopeful that it will be cool, but Dino was the princpal songwriter for all of their past stuff, so who knows.

I also read a blurb quoting Dimebag Darrel as saying that Pantera was officially done as a band. I guess it really isn't current news, but I hadn't heard it. For better or for worse, Pantera wrote some pretty sweet songs, and I own all of their albums except the last one, and they're all good. They got a little too "GRRR I'M TOUGHER THAN YOU!" in the last couple discs, but the music was still badass. I gues s Dime and Vinny Paul are going on with another band, so perhaps the sweet musical end of Pantera will live on without the raw testosterone that Phil brought to to the band.

Wow, just read another article about Anthrax... apparently they're going to record an in-studio live album consisting of 12 of their old Belladonna era tunes, and they're letting the fans vote for which tunes to use! That is totally cool, because John Bush is like 6.02e23 times better than Joey Belladonna. Vote here.

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