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CD: Iced Earth - Iced Earth	Released:
Reviewed By: Oskar Lundin (Nightcrawler)	Rating: (4.5/5)

This album is actually very underrated in my opinion, it's definitely one of he better debut albums I've ever heard. Already on the debut, Jon Schaffer delivers some fucking intense thrash riffing, he has put his trademark riffs all over the album, creating this a killer thrash album, with shitloads of riffs on each damn song. Even the guitar soloing is fairly well executed, something that usually is Iced Earth's weakest part. The drumming on the other hand is quite flat, and pretty much just plods along.

Then we have the vocalist Gene Adam, who appears to be hated by pretty much every metal fan on this planet. Personally, I think he is quite bad, but not all that terrible as some might say he is. He has to ability to turn almost all his lines into a high-pitched scream (see: Iced Earth), fortunately he doesn't constantly use this ability, as this would get somewhat annoying. His clean vocals are fairly poor, but not terrible.

The album never gets boring either, since there are shitloads of riff and tempo changes, keeping the listener constantly interested. Most of the album is lyrically and musically very dark and evil, often even darker than Night Of The Stormrider and Burnt Offerings. This shows best in the closing track When The Night Falls, and Colors, which has pretty much the same lyrical subject as Iron Maiden's Killers, people who get killed in the subway, only the Iced Earth song is much more evil.

This album contains many classic Iced Earth songs. We have When The Night Falls, a dark, riff-packed song with an epic pre-chorus and chorus. Then there is Written On The Walls, which also has a quite epic feeling to it, with it's heavy riffing, dark verses, the slow bridge and the great acoustic passage. Not to forget The Funeral, a most excellent instrumental, and of course the title track: Iced Earth, one of my favourite tracks ever by this band. The riffing of this song is absolutely insane, especially the opening riff is a personal favourite of mine. Other interesting songs are the slower Curse The Sky, and Life And Death which begins as a great ballad but turns into a riff monster.

Overall, this is no Night Of The Stormrider, but it definitely is a truly strong release, which deserves far more attention than it gets. The riffing on the album is better than on any of the later three Iced Earth albums, it even beats most songs on Burnt Offerings.

So, if you can stand Gene Adam's vocals, this is definitely recommended. Actually, if you can't stand Gene, get this anyway if you like thrash metal at all. This fucking rocks!