Ashes of Ares & Iced Earth

Once I was an ignorant child who knew nothing of the wonder that Matt Barlow is. Then my boyfriend (now husband) saved me from my darkness by showing me a live interpretation of Iced Earth’s Dracula and I was in awe. That man, who I would affectionately call Lurch because of his low wailing vocals, was able to produce those Halford-esque high pitched screams? I had no words! And so my love for Matt Barlow (and consequently Iced Earth) was born. Needless to say I was devastated when he decided to leave the band, but now that Iced Earth is alive and kicking and Matt is gracing our ears once more in Ashes of Ares, all is right in the world.

Ashes of Ares, Ashes of Ares

This is a project I was most impatient for (for obvious reasons) and I have to say it’s everything I expected it to be. From the first second I hear Matt’s amazing voice, I am swept.

The songs are not the most original thing in the world and they’re heavily inspired from Iced Earth, but I was expecting it, so it’s not that much of a disappointment. For every straightforward heavy metal moment like the blunt intro of Punishment or the thrashiness of Chalice of Man, there’s the guitar solo stolen (ahem, inspired) from Iced Earth, but personally I don’t mind that. More Iced Earth to go around, right? And considering I really miss Matt’s voice in the original band, I can say I’m almost happier with this album than the other one. Considering this is an ex-Nevermore + ex-Iced Earth duo, I expected some Nevermore influences as well, but they seem too well hidden for a casual Nevermore listener like myself.

For the most part, there’s not much variation between songs and at certain point I started wondering about how much inspiration went into this. There are however moments that stand out, like the compelling and memorable chorus of Dead man’s plight, This is my hell, which starts out like a calm ballad, only to grow into a pouring of rage and desperation and desolation, executed masterfully by Barlow and The one-eyed king, which provides the most experimentation (if you can call it that, it’s a very safe album). All three are very good songs, but my favourite moment is On warrior’s wings, which is a moving tribute to one of Matt’s friend who died in the line of duty and the proof that the most beautiful songs are the ones that are most personal and heartfelt.

If the quality of the songs is decent, the true value of this album lies in the vocals and let me tell you, Matt goes all out on this. There is his regular emotional singing that he does like no one else, there are his regular moments of aggressiveness, there’s more high pitched singing then in all of his Iced Earth career put together, there are even some notes I never heard out his mouth before like the airy vocals on the bridge of What I am and the creepy almost spoken line in that same song…. it’s basically the Matt Barlow show and I am most happy to welcome him back in the world of music.

Iced Earth, Plagues of Babylon

And now for the real deal. Kinda… I can’t ignore the fact that it was Schaffer who wrote all the music and without him there would be no Iced Earth, but at the same time I can’t ignore it was Matt who brought Schaffer’s ideas to life and his voice that made me fall in love with IE in the first place. I guess I’ll just skip the “originality” wars and worry strictly about the music.

Plagues of Babylon starts with what I believe was meant to be an epic intro, but what eventually turned out to be something that was so long and repetitive that it seemed it would never end. Thankfully, the song evolves after that into a festival of awesomeness, complete with the unmistakable Schaffer bass riffs and with an ominous atmosphere that reminds me of Damien and sets the expectations for the rest of the album very high. Then, non-thankfully… deflation. The next songs suffer from the interchangeability issue that Ashes of Ares has. They’re pretty cool put separately, but when I have to listen to what seems like five times repetition of the same track and after so many listens I still have no idea which is which, the lack of a vocalist who can breathe life into these songs and pull them out of anonymity becomes very visible (and before you accuse me of being too much of a fangirl when Matt is concerned, you should know I’m including Tim Ripper in this category as well). And that brings us to the vocals….

Anyone stepping in to replace Matt was in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” position and after two albums, Stu Block still doesn’t seem to have decided which type of damnation to choose. He’s constantly pendulating between sounding just like Barlow and remembering he actually has an identity of his own and I don’t know what to make of it. I mean sure, it’s nice that they didn’t try to change a recipe that was good to begin with, but every time I listen to Stu trying to be Matt, I remember that… he’s not. He has a good voice as long as he needs to sing aggressively and I really like his screams, but as soon as he tries to pull off the emotional side of If I could see you, it becomes painfully obvious that he is not the full package that’s needed to convey Schaffer’s ideas and bring them to life.

Speaking of which, starting with that song, the album becomes really good composition-wise. The second half completely saves this record, If I could see you is a lovely ballad and Cthulhu, Peacemaker and Parasite are all very good songs as well. I guess it’s just like Iced Earth to bore me to death with one song and then completely amaze me with another. I still have no idea why they decided to include Spirit of the time on the album, though, because it’s written by Jon Schaffer for another one of his projects and from what I understand it’s mostly performed by Schaffer as well (I’m still a bit confused as to who sings what in this song, it sounds different than the original and I was just about to give Stu credit for being able to sing emotionally for once, but I guess I’m taking it back)… so what exactly is new here and why did we need this track on Plagues of Babylon?

In a nut shell, this is what happens when you break a successful music + voice duo: you get an album with mediocre compositions and an excellent voice on one side and an album with good compositions and mediocre interpretation on the other side. I expect that one day Stu will stop trying to copy Matt’s vocals and fly free, while Matt will stop trying to copy Schaffer’s songwriting and fly free himself and then we will witness either a successful reinvention of both bands, either the end of everything that used to make Iced Earth awesome. In the meantime, since I can’t decide if Ashes of Ashes and Iced Earth are nowadays halves of the same whole or copies of the same original, I’ll just continue to enjoy both bands with that “more Iced Earth to go around” I started the review with.