allan evans

Hey call me a plagiarist, but I thought this is good news for those of us
who dig Iced Earth, so here it is again, straight from the source (the Iced
Earth message board):


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Posted by Jon Schaffer on Thursday, July 31, 2003 at 9:34PM :
Hey People,

Well the album is done, and it's not just done, it rules!! I have never been
more pleased in all my years of recording.
It came out the way it was supposed to be!
And now for the big news, it's Tim Owens on vocals and he did an amazing
job! I know there were a lot of people hoping that this would be the case,
and it is.
I've asked Neil to put a sample of 3 of the songs for you guys to check out.
SPV agreed to letting me do this as long as I did not put the whole song up.
I hope you enjoy them, I know I do.
I'll be in touch soon with more news and details of the release dates for
the single which will be called "The Reckoning" and the full length CD "The
Glorious Burden."
I can honestly tell you I've never felt better and am truly looking to the
future with more optimism than ever before.

Until next time,

Jon

As I said to the other message board, this could be good, in that
they got a known metal voice, but it could also be bad, because he's a
known metal voice.
The other problem is he's still going to be a hired gun. From what I
understand the album was fully written and ready to be recorded when
Matt said he wanted to do something else.
Maybe next time Ripper might get to write some lyrics. However, it
does answer the question as to what he was going to do after Judas
Priest.
Ironic thing is, they (Iced Earth) just signed with SPV. The same
label that released the Live in London thing. Another ironic thing
might be the fact that Iced Earth's last CM album possibly sold more
in the US than did Demolition.
In an interview with the CM CEO, he said something to the effect
that they were still trying to break the US market, and that the top
selling US CM CD's had sold in the 50,000 range. Iced Earth was
mentioned, and last I saw, the Demolition numbers put it about 40,000
sold. This was probably 2001 to early 2002. I am sure that with the
video airplay Shadows Fall is getting, and the Ozzfest tour, they
might well now be the top selling CM band in the US. The steady
numbers that Lacuna Coil seems to be doing, might well have them up
there as well.
The ironic thing here for Ripper is that he might sell more copies
in the US than he did on the last JP CD. If you count the Live in
London CD, it didn't sell 5000 in the US in about the first month.

Tom

ian salsbury

Just read that this may be just a temporary thing. Ripper Owens has recorded
the vocals for the new IE album but hasn`t decided whether to become a full
time member or not. He`s had a bunch of offers apparently. I reckon IE need
to be careful here, Ripper Owens is already the 4th vocalist they`ve had in
only 7 proper studio albums. Few bands can survive such a constant frontman
rotation, in fact most find it hard to survive just one!

-Ian-

This is all true, however, they've only had one guy really make a
mark with his vocals, and is on most of the albums.
The guy on the first album was a pretty forgettable screecher. On
the second album Jon sang one song, and a more standard metal singer
did the rest. Then Matt joined the band.
I think that the Iced Earth fans if they end up liking the new
album, will want to see Tim tour with the band in support of the
album. If they do not like it, then I don't know where or what Iced
Earth will do.
The big thing with changing vocalists is if the band has a major hit
with the singer or not. In the case of Iced Earth, this won't be a
problem in the US. Few people have actually heard their albums here
that they could do a tour with a different singer every night and some
people wouldn't know the difference. Which is very sad. I think I saw
something that they had scanned some 45,000 sold with one of their
albums in the US. Pretty underground here. (I think that the best
selling album they've done in the US is Something Wicked this Way
Comes)
Whatever they have sold, I like the band a lot. I think they're one
of the few that do the classic metal style that I've heard.
I just heard a Machine Head song on Digital Music Cable, and they
sound like they added a rapping vocal style to the stuff. I heard some
of their older albums, or maybe only one, and it was a lot more
standard metal album. I can't say I'd be happy hearing them go over to
the dark side and add rap to their sound.

Tom