YMMV / Iced Earth

• Anvilicious: The Glorious Burden is unrelenting with its jingoistic pro-America stance. This particularly irked some fans when coupled with the fact that Schaffer was spewing some pretty angry and condescending rants about Americans not having enough appreciation for their country's history around the time of the album's release.
• The Artifact: A lot of listeners find Gene Adam's vocals on the band's first album to be amateurish compared to the backing music, which is quite complex. However, these vocals were a relic of the band's more thrash-punk predecessor Purgatory, whose horror themed lyrics had him playing more of a character. As Iced Earth the group's style became a lot more progressive and dramatic and Gene didn't have a lot of time to adapt his vocals to the new style. By the time of the Purgatory reunion EP, he had improved to a considerable degree.
• Audience-Alienating Era:
  • Despite having some fans, the Tim Owens era of Iced Earth (2003–2007) is considered this by many, an experience shared by fans of other metal band. In addition to Owens having to live up to the critically acclaimed Matt Barlow, Iced Earth really didn't break through the glass ceiling to become the next Iron Maiden or Judas Priest, despite Owens himself being a former Priest singer. It didn't help either that it was around this time when Jon Schaffer became much more politically outspoken and dismissive of any and all his bandmates as being "replaceable" in interviews, causing a lot of fans to turn against Iced Earth and write Schaffer off as an arrogant jingoistic blowhard with delusions of grandeur.
  • Also, despite having Matt Barlow back at the mic, The Crucible Of Man is considered by many fans to be not only a continuation of the band's Audience-Alienating Era but among the weakest albums they have ever put out. The hiring of Stu Block as lead vocalist and release of the well-received Dystopia is generally agreed to be when the band's Audience-Alienating Era finally ended.
• Awesome Music:
  • “Stormrider” with its unrelenting riffage and instantly yellable chorus (FIGHT ON! GRAB ON! STORMRIDER! STORMRIDER!)
  • “Damien”, a slow and ominous yet Epic Riff-filled brood inspired by The Omen.
  • The 16-minute multi-part epic of “Dante’s Inferno”, showcasing Matt Barlow’s ferocious vocal range and Schaffer’s pounding rhythm guitar with epic operatic backing.
  • The similarly long and epic “Travel in Stygian” is also a prime example, with more thunderous rhythms backing an impressively emotional performance by John Greely.
• Complete Monster:
  • "Dark Saga" & "The Last Laugh”: Malebolgia, the self-proclaimed "destroyer of the light", is the demon who is responsible for creating Spawn. Making a deal with the deceased CIA soldier Al Simmons, Malebolgia rigged the deal, resulting in Al's soul becoming corrupted and tormented, becoming the present Spawn. It was soon revealed that Malebolgia tries to manipulate Spawn for his own bidding in order to destroy mankind and the heavens.
  • “Damien": Damien himself is as wicked as his film counterpart. Having always known of his dark roots, Damien, "when the boy becomes a man", paves the way for the apocalypse and for his father's minions to pave the way to famine, destruction, and corruption, to show mankind what Hell really means until humanity exists no more. Damien showcases every inch of his evil through the song's near-ten minute length, even vowing to make Jesus suffer as none have ever suffered before.
• Funny Moments:
  • The secret song on Dystopia, with the band seemingly-drunkenly singing "I don't think these lads can take their ale," especially considering all the other songs on the album.
  • The outro in Plagues Of Babylon, which is just the band goofing around in the studio.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The band have actually experienced this twice:
  • Germany (well, in this case it's Germans Love Iced Earth); In their early days, they were much more popular in Germany than anywhere else. They signed to Century Media and formed a great friendship with German band Blind Guardian, and quickly built up a German following doing a lot of support dates for them. Schaffer's German ancestry (evident in his surname) meant he already had a great love for the country and was at ease doing interviews there. After a series of personal troubles and the departure of John Greely from the band, Schaffer seriously didn't know whether to continue the band, but was encouraged to because of the outpouring of support from German fans (he's mentioned this in a few interviews).
  • Iced Earth has a particularly large fandom in and around Greece, ever since their massively successful live album "Alive In Athens" was recorded there. They are one of the most popular foreign metal bands in Greece, much more so than anywhere else. The band also recorded Live in Ancient Kourion in nearby country Cyprus, which ensured their popularity there too.
• Heartwarming Moments: "Watching Over Me," dedicated to an old friend of Schaffer's who tragically died in a motorcycle accident.
• He Really Can Act: Gene Adam's singing skills have improved drastically between the debut album, and his performance on the Purgatory EP; some even comparing his style with that of King Diamond.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • “When the Eagle Cries”, about the events of 9/11, feels a little bit off after Jon began vocally espousing 9/11 conspiracy narratives only a few years later.
  • Also applies somewhat to “The Reckoning (Don’t Tread On Me)”, an angry patriotic anthem loosely about retaliating for the attacks. Given how the War on Terror would proceed and live on in popular memory, it really doesn't come off the same way anymore...
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The European limited edition of The Dark Saga has Judas Priest's "The Ripper" as a bonus song.
• Magnificent Bastard: From The Crucible of Man: Something Wicked Part 2: Set Abominae, seeking vengeance of the exterminated Setian race, is taught of his people's suffering and how he is the vengeance of a million unjustly Setian souls, manipulating the death of Jesus Christ to divide mankind with Christianity and spending centuries after conniving the rise and fall of kingdoms even as he eliminates those who can pose a threat. After two thousand years, Set finally decides mankind may be flawed, but they have changed and improved enough for him to spare them albeit with a warning if they should succumb to darkness, he will return without mercy.
• Narm:
  • Despite the serious subject matter of "When The Eagle Cries", Tim Owens's extremely hammy performance and the excessively melodramatic lyrics make the song come off much cornier than it was probably supposed to. This goes doubly so for the video due to the addition of Tim Owens's blatant overacting.
  • The music video for "Ten Thousand Strong", mainly due to the very obviously cheap CGI and costumes.
• Never Live It Down: It is highly unlikely that Jon Schaffer will ever live down his role in storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
• Older Than They Think:
  • "Stormrider" and "Mystical End" were both written during Purgatory era of the mid 80s (as heard on rare bootlegs) but not recorded till their second album "Night Of The Stormrider" in 1991 (after having been included as filler on the first album's tour). A third Purgatory track, "Winter Nights" was also performed on the first album tour, but didn't get recorded for NOTS - but after fans requested it, it was studio recorded with Matt Barlow on vocals for 1997's Days Of Purgatory.
  • Similarly, '1776' from Something Wicked This Way Comes was a Purgatory instrumental that has an identical arrangement to the original (which can be heard on bootlegs). The only thing that was different was the title - when Purgatory played it, the song was named after the band (and in a way, was their theme song).
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Jon Schaffer, who founded Iced Earth and is the band's rhythm guitarist and principal songwriter, has steadily lost respect from many fans for his far-right libertarian political beliefs, conspiracy theories, and support for anti-government extremist groups since the mid-2000s. The final blow to the band's image was when Schaffer was discovered to have participated in the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack trying to overturn Joe Biden's electoral victory over Donald Trump, of which five people were killed and over 140 people were injured. This resulted in Schaffer's arrest, all the remaining band members (save for drummer Brent Smedley) quitting in protest of his behavior, and longtime record label Century Media dropping the band, leaving it uncertain if Iced Earth will ever recover.
• Signature Song: "Travel in Stygian" for John Greely, "Dante's Inferno" or "Dracula" for Matt Barlow, "Dystopia" or "Seven Headed Whore" for Stu Block.
• Special Effect Failure: As mentioned above, the whole of the "Ten Thousand Strong" music video. The cell-shaded filter was probably intended to cover up the extremely obvious low-budget visual effects, but it just makes it look even sillier.
• Vindicated by History: Gene Adam, whose vocals were considered to pale in comparison to their later vocalists, had massively improved by the time of the Purgatory reunion EP in 2018. He noted in interviews that he hadn't been happy with his vocals on Iced Earth's first album, which was due to limited studio time and low budget which prevented retakes or much multitracking. Fans have also reevaluated his vocals in the context of the time he was originally in Purgatory - it was part of Tampa's thrash scene at the time, and his thrash growl was contemporary (it resembles most closely the style of Bobby Blitz of Overkill). By the time of IE's Enter The Realm and the first album, Schaffer's writing had become more progressive and melodically complex, and Gene's style was starting to seem out of place, with Schaffer declining on including him on Night Of The Stormrider (their most progressive album) after the instrumentals were recorded. Many fans believe with the modern-day improvements in his voice, he could easily handle Stormrider.
• Win Back the Crowd: While Matt Barlow coming back to Iced Earth wasn't quite able to do the trick after the Tim Owens era, Stu Block becoming the vocalist and Iced Earth releasing the well-received Dystopia was able to win back a lot of fans to Iced Earth as a serious metal act and usher in at least a decade of more solid songwriting and audience adoration before Jon Schaffer's controversial actions on January 6, 2021 completely changed how everyone viewed him and the band.

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