Iced Earth - Dystopia |
Published October 17 2011
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Dystopia* |
| Genre | Heavy Metal |
Stu Block
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Vocals
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| Tracks | 10 |
Jon Schaffer
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Guitar
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| Running time | 45 Min. |
Troy Seele
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Guitar
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| Label | Century Media |
Freddie Vidales
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Bass
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| Release | 17 October 2011 |
Brent Smedley
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Drums
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| Country | USA |
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Keyboard
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| Producer | Jim Morris/Jon Schaffer | ||
| Similar artists | Judas Priest, Grave Digger | ||
Dystopia is the tenth studio album from American heavy metal band Iced Earth, following the departure of singer Matt Barlow and a long search for his replacement. New vocalist Stu Block won't disappoint anyone as he has, besides a hilarious name, a great voice. He seems to have the qualities of both Matt Barlow and Ripper Owens as he takes on both the higher notes and the deeper, darker parts flawlessly while still having a lot of personality in his voice.
There is obviously a dystopian theme to the album and anyone who knows their science fiction movies will recognize some dystopian film titles in the track listing such as V, Dark City and Equilibrium. Songwise there are some highs and lows, Boiling Point being the absolute high point and probably the best song from Iced Earth in a long time. The last two or three songs don't really stand out, though, and I would have survived without them.
The production is a huge improvement from the two latest releases which sounded clustered and seemed to have too much things going on at once, making them hard for me to enjoy. This is a much more unpretentious experience and I can see a lot of potential in this new incarnation of Iced Earth. Matt Barlow who?
See
also review of: Plagues
Of Babylon , Live
In Ancient Kourion , The
Crucible Of Man , The
Glorious Burden , The
Reckoning
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Performance
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Originality
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Production
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Vocals
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Songwriting
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6,5 |
6 |
7 |
7,5 |
6,5 |
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Summary
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6,5 chalices of 10 - Bjorn |
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