Days of Purgatory

Days of Purgatory is a collection of re-recorded and remixed songs from Iced Earth. Matt Barlow has made the impossible possible: for the first time in the history of Iced Earth - which have been 7 years - a singer stayed in the band for more than one album. Thus, Jon Schaffer saw in Barlow his eternal vocalist and rewarded him with the honor to re-record the songs from before his time and let him take over the vocals for these songs. As much as I would enjoy such an idea, as disappointed I am that they have executed this idea so stupidly.

First of all: Why have they excluded some songs from the first two albums? Why haven't they just re-recorded all of the old songs, and made the first CD contain all songs from the Iced Earth album and the second CD all songs from the Night of the Stormrider album? Or, since the purpose behind all this is to have Matt Barlow sing the songs Gene Adam and John Greely sang on, have even re-recorded some stuff from the Purgatory era, since Jon has literally called this compilation Days of my-band-when-it-still-had-the-old-name? They have excluded Curse the Sky, the best song from the first album next to written on the walls, and the only one that was actually worth re-recording with Matt on Vocals since Gene has turned this song into a joke back on the album (and the demo), as well as Mystical End from the Night of the Stormrider, as well as The Path I Choose. What makes this even more pathetic is that they have decided to let Matt sing two of these songs live later on, with The Path I Choose on the Alive in Athens show and Curse The Sky on the Horror Show tour. So what was the purpose in leaving them out? Instead they have inflated this compilation with supposed remixes from Burnt Offerings songs where the only difference you can hear out are the four high hat hits on the Creator Failure song and a different intro on the Burnt Offerings title track. Sorry, but I couldn't care less about remixes, maybe the differences would go directly into my ears if I had a 2000€ super sensitive sound system, but I don't want to waste my money on stuff like that. And they have added instrumentals? Who gives a fuck about Enter the Realm, Solitude and The Funeral, especially where is there any difference between this version of The Funeral and the original version? So you had the nerves to put Enter the Realm on this compilation, but not Curse the Sky? And both interludes from the Night of the Stormrider, but left out The Path I Choose and Mystical End? OK, I give Iced Earth one point for making Winter Nights happen, which was unreleased until now and even today the only thing we can find from it is a live version from a 1991 show in Wuppertal.

And now, secondly, who thought it was a good idea to cut out parts from songs? Where is the beautiful intro for When the Night falls? Why is the spoken part in Before the Vision removed? Yes, the essential thing was done, to hear Matt on songs that were made with other vocalists, but all this is just completely flattening the experience and leaves a bitter taste, since there were good parts from songs removed that made them perfect the way they were, and a regular remaster with switched out vocals would have been much more enjoyable. And the worst about it is the rework of Written on the Walls to Cast in Stone. Barlow's vocals are great as always, but not only were the keyboards removed from the intro, but also the lyrics were completely replaced with worse ones. Jon Schaffer must have had some personal problems with Gene Adam, because Written on the Walls was completely written by him, so letting Matt replace the lyrics must mean something (or there were copyright issues, which are completely understandable, but in this case he should still have insisted on better lyrics). Sadly, his lyrical skills were afwul back then, so if you know Ashes of Ares, you will be negatively suprised about how they have changed the apocalyptic prophecy from Written to the Walls into a bad B-Movie impression.

Now to the good part: the vocals from Barlow are significantly better than the ones from his predecessors and what makes the re-recorded songs even better is that Barlow has given the songs his own touch. He hasn't just sung the same notes as Gene and John, but instead he has changed them here and there and even the regular re-issue of the songs with Barlow on in just sound different, because he sings them angrier. This is something you could especially hear on the Night of the Stormrider songs. John Greely was good, but he was too soft on the mid-range notes, while Barlow is completely harsh on Angels Holocaust, Desert Rain and Pure Evil. Before I have listened to this compilation I had no doubt that he will rescue the songs from the debut album or Enter the Realm, respectively (Nightmares is from the demo) with his voice and that the songs from the Night of the Stormrider album will sound way better, but I didn't expect that he will give some parts a complete different interpretation. The high shrieks from John Greely were replaced with actual high singing notes, same with the vocals from Gene Adam, which mainly sounded like he has just read the lyrics. Matt Barlow puts energy and melody in his vocals, which just makes the songs overall better. Only Stormrider isn't sung by Matt Barlow, but by Jon Schaffer, and he fits perfectly to it. After this I would have preferred if he did the vocals on the debut album, I wonder why he hasn't. But until today he does the vocals on Stormrider live.

The Night of the Stormrider songs were also re-recorded with a harsher guitar tune and the effects and synths moved more in the background. The choir in the intro of Angels Holocaust was louder than the riffs in the original version, here you need to listen closer to hear them. With this you get a new experience of the album and the harsher tune fits better to the songs than the original thinner guitar sound.

As great as the new versions songs are, as disappointing it is that they haven't re-recorded all of the pre-Barlow tracks. Also, the Burnt Offerings Remixes are annoying fillers. I don't only mean they're pointless in their existence, but also they're annoying to be found on the CDs, where you always have to skip these tracks to get to the stuff you actually want to hear. This way the compilation is just incomplete and misarranged and leaves the two questions open, why haven't they included all the album and demo songs and how would they have sounded?

I think it is a bit difficult to write a review and rate a release of this kind. Not unless you have decided under which terms you judge it. If you think of it as a filler between two albums, then it may seem quite unnecessary because both time and money are very precious even if you are a die-hard of the band. Personally, I prefer to see it as a kind of best-off, slightly different than usual compilations.

What you get with this double CD, is two previously unreleased songs while the majority is made up from songs you have heard on their first three albums and none from the Dark Saga LP. These songs have been remixed and they feature Matt Barlow on the vocals.

The two “new” tracks are Winter Nights and Nightmares. Since I hadn’t heard them before, I can not tell the differences between the past of Iced Earth and their fresh, modern sound. All I can say is that they are typical Iced Earth songs, from their first years that is, possessing all the well-known elements they introduced us. They have razor-sharp guitars in the familiar style of Jon Schaffer, pounding drums and aggressive, harsh vocals that I think are suitable for Barlow’s singing abilities. They will definitely please you and get you into motion.

But the interesting part is found in the rest of the songs. As I mentioned earlier, it would be easier to consider this release as a best-off album. If you do, you will be satisfied with the track-listing, since most of their best moments are found in here. Letting aside the two instrumental tracks, Enter the Realm and Solitude, as well as the intros Reaching the End and Before the Vision, there are six songs from their self-titled debut, five from Night of the Stormrider and four from Burnt Offerings. Well-balanced selection I can say.

So, do you remember Angel’s Holocaust and Desert Rain with the furious, aggressive riffs? Or Colours and Iced Earth with the storming guitars and galloping paces? Well, here Iced Earth, with a modern sound, much better production and yet heavier guitars, give lessons of how pure heavy metal should be played. If you liked their first three albums, then Days of Purgatory will take you to a new level of pleasure and enjoyment. The biggest difference though, is to be found in the vocals. To be honest, I disliked Gene Adam’s vocals; still they were raging enough to excite me. John Greely was surely better than him but still he lacked something. Now, Matt Barlow comes to fill in the blanks. His harsh, growling way of singing puts atop the list of the band’s vocalists and his tones give a new dimension and color to the compositions. Owens that succeeded him was good but no match for Barlow. Some may argue with me on this but I truly believe so.

As far as it concerns the structure of the songs, there are no big differences apart from the drums which sound even better played by Smedley, and the vocals of course. Those of you with a more experienced ear will notice a slight change in the intro of Burnt Offerings. I didn’t at first.

Now comes the part where I have to rate this release. Let me think for a minute. Excellent song selection, better production, heavier sound, well-improved vocals and two unreleased tracks… okay, I have decided. An 84% should do the job.

P.S. Why is Diary not in here?

Though Jon Schaeffer’s peculiar fetish with rerecording songs with different vocalists has been getting a bit tiresome of late, this is probably among the more purposeful instances of a band dipping back into their catalog and give the sound an update. The primary thing that kept me from obtaining and listening to this until only recently was the fact that it was released right smack in the middle of Iced Earth’s low period. Coupled with the fact that there was a heavy population of remixes of material from “Burnt Offerings” on the original 2 disc release, I had assumed that this releases contained a collection of classics that had been butchered by being integrated into a “The Dark Saga” style of soft ball drudgery. But getting the single CD version without the meaningless remixes for $4 is another matter altogether, and upon hearing this compilation’s contents I was pleasantly surprised.

The important thing to be clear about this release is that despite it having similar comic book album art like “The Dark Saga”, this is still fundamentally rooted in the old epic thrash Iced Earth that many have fond memories of. Sure it’s pretty formulaic, there’s enough chugging riffs to give every college fraternity in America alcohol poisoning, and the amount of galloping is probably akin to the collective horsepower of every episode of “Speed Racer”, but it’s a solid chunk of metal from start to finish. Barlow’s vocals are, surprisingly enough, free of most of the depressed Paul Stanley moments that he started exhibiting on “The Dark Saga”, save a brief section on “Winter Nights”, which is the most power metal oriented song on here. The production values on these albums are a bit uneven, as most of the instrumentation has remained intact, save some reworked drum and bass tracks on the “Enter The Realm” material, which does well to improve the sound and bring the production value up to par with the “Night Of The Stormrider” material.

Whenever you talk to the average Iced Earth junkie, the conventional wisdom is that Barlow is the end all, be all of the band and that the original two singers were crap, which is extremely frustrating as many of these people probably haven‘t heard the “Stormrider“ songs without Barlow. A small minority view Greely as the superior vocalist, while an even smaller one that you’ll very rarely encounter think that Gene Adam was the voice of the band. If one goes solely by vocal versatility, then Barlow edges out the other two because he generally has an easier time singing clean without sounding like he’s whispering. However, when it comes to doing dirty thrash growls or shattering windows with Halford inspired banshee wails, Greely runs circles around Barlow. This becomes immediately apparent when comparing the original version of “Angel’s Holocaust” with this version. Barlow pulls off the ballad sections quite nicely, but the minute things turn up the pitch frequency, his voice does not cut through the glass with the same sharpness and intensity that Greely’s primal shrieks did so masterfully.

By contrast, all of the old Gene Adam material has seen a sizable improvement. I never really saw this band’s original vocalist as being bad the way some do, but he was definitely a few steps behind Greely and Tim Owens, and perhaps a single step behind Barlow. The remakes of “Iced Earth” and “Colors” in particular are absolutely solid. If they’d stuck to material like this after “Burnt Offerings” and not tried to compose a bunch of half-metal, half-rock symphonies I’d probably have a higher opinion of their later material. The amount of melodic material that comes forth from the “Enter The Realm” demo still gives the album a very 1988 feel to them, despite the fact that the drums and bass have been redone to bring it more in line with their 90s material. There are some definite parallels with late 80s Bay Area bands like “Testament” and “Death Angel” at work here, which when combined with Barlow’s husky baritone range makes for a very interesting variation on an older style.

Occasionally when we delve into our local CD store bargain bins we come out with a few pieces of precious metal, and this is basically one of them as far as I see it. It’s not quite an essential purchase, as the band’s first 2 albums and “Burnt Offerings” would be, but it is something that will nicely supplement your collection if you have enough interest in the band to be curious about how different the dimensions of a song can change when you switch out the lead vocal slot. It definitely won’t win over any of the band’s detractors, but it will please even part time fans who mostly take interest in their older material, most notably power/thrash fans who really liked the band’s “Enter The Realm” demo and their 1st album.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on March 28, 2009.

I really don’t know what to say about this album because some of these songs are a billion times better then the original, but then again, some of these songs just sound like fucken crap and they can’t compare to the original. I must say this is not an unnecessary album, because we get three rare tracks (“Winter Nights”, “Nightmares”, and “Enter the Realm”) that are only available if you have their demo, and the other song you’ll only get through a bootleg.

There are many songs in here that I prefer in the original version. First, we have “The Funeral”, which takes away that little speech made in the middle of the song and it makes the song sound pretty plain, but the bass sounds pretty good though. “When the Night Falls” is also a song better in original version just because of Matt Barlow. He messes up the fricken chorus and the vocals just sound like crap and they also took away that soothing intro, which I really liked. Don’t even waste your fucking time on “Cast In Stone”; this is the worst fucking song here because Matt’s vocals don’t go along with whatever the fuck is being played! The lyrics are better than original “Written On The Walls”, I must give it that, but it can’t even touch that song, “Written On The Walls” is so much better (and where the fuck is that cool little intro?). “Desert Rain” would have been a good song, except that Matt Barlow over sings at the chorus and it sounds cheesy. Matt’s vocals sound kinda bland in “Travel In Stygian”, which means these songs suck only because of Matt fucken Barlow! (exclude “The Funeral” with what I said earlier).

There are also songs in which I really don’t care about because both versions of the song are good. This includes the instrumental and the interludes (“Enter The Realm”, “Before The Vision”, “Solitude”, and “Reaching The End” respectfully). “Nightmares” is a song that’s good in both versions, as well as “Pure Evil”. Matt does a good job on these songs, but so do Greely and Adams. “Burnt Offerings” and “Brainwashed” are also songs good in both versions by the way they sound. “Burnt Offerings” has that awesome new intro and “Brainwashed” has that crisp sound. “Dante’s Inferno” also falls into this category, mainly because I find it better than the original Burnt Offerings version, but not remotely close to the remastered Burnt Offerings version. I think these songs show that Iced Earth can remaster music, but still remain very original (that’s why I gave it such a high rating).

Now we have the good songs! First we “Colors”, which is better than the original version. The original version is good too, but I actually prefer this version of the song. The intro to “Angels Holocaust” also sounds better (because we hear more voices and fewer guitars) than the original version and Matt adds some emotion to his vocals, which Greely failed to do, making it sounds all boring. The intro to “Stormrider” was added to the end of “Angels Holocaust” and terminated from this song (that’s a good thing). “Stormrider” offers cleaner riffs and vocals by Jon Schaffer! “Winter Nights” is an awesome rare song found only in this album or rare bootlegs. Matt’s version of “Life And Death” kills Gene’s version of this song easily and “Creator Failure” offers three symbol crashes instead of just blasting the music into your ears like it did in the Burnt Offerings version. Probably the best song on here is their title song, “Iced Earth”. It completely kills Gene’s version of this song that just sounded like weak little crap. You don’t need my words to know it is better, just hearing both versions will easily tell you which one is better.

In conclusion, it is actually a pretty good release. It has its ups and downs, but it is completely worth buying just to hear the Matt Barlow versions.

There was no reason for Iced Earth to re-record material that was already well done on their earlier albums. Fans of the new singer, Matt Barlow, prefer his voice on the tracks as opposed to the old singers, but why did Iced Earth re-record an entire two disc set? Isn't the live performance the place to hear the new singer's take on the old songs? What if every band did this when they hired a new vocalist? We'd have hundreds of unnecessary albums stealing attention from the originals. Annihilator would have an extra half dozen albums alone. The entire concept of releasing this CD is incredibly stupid and I'd have to conclude there was some major lapses in judgment over at Century Media to let this project get approved.

And that's just the concept. The actual result turned out pretty well musically and fans of Matt Barlow probably love this. I personally think Barlow is Iced Earth's worst singer, not so much on his own faults, but because the other guys were better. He does a good job with the stuff from Stormrider, but he almost ruins the tracks from the self-titled album. A lot of people seem to dislike the band's first singer, but he had the most unique voice of all of them, primarily due to his killer falsetto. Barlow's voice just doesn't measure up, despite the fact that he's the better 'singer.' His voice just isn't metal enough to pull off the classics.

This album's high points are the inclusion of songs that haven't been done since Enter the Realm (the new version of "Nightmares" is awesome) and the rare track "Winter Nights." The album's low point is the new lyrics and altered music of "Written on the Walls", now entitled "Cast in Stone." I liked the original a lot better. In fact, don't bother with this release at all, unless you're an Iced Earth die hard. Having their first two albums is more than sufficient enough to make up for not owning this.

OK, most people think that because this has Matt Barlow singing on these songs, it has to kick ass. Well, Matt really over-sang most of the songs here, and the vocals just sound like crap. The guitars are from the original versions, but the bass and drums have been redone, leading to some really awkward tones. The only real highlights here are the "rough mix" of Dantes Inferno (which is better than the album version), the original version of Burnt Offerings with a completely different intro, and the ultra-rare song, Winter Nights (only available on this, or on super rare demos or bootlegs). Other than that, these songs just don't sound right with 1991 guitars and 1996 bass and drums. They should have redone the guitars and make it sound more like an album than someone jamming along to their favorite CD.