Andy Law
Your lyrics have always contained a lot of powerful spiritual imagery, which the music's tones faithfully represent. Which is the harder task for you during songwriting - the lyrics or the music?
The music is the more challenging. As far as i'm concerned the lyrics are in a way the least important part of the song - the music is what provides the entire atmosphere of the song. I look at it in the way if you were watching a movie and muted the music out of a horror movie or a drama, its not going to be anywhere near as emotional if the music isn't there. The music is what makes you scared, its what makes you cry in a movie or a drama - something sad or very heavy. Music never gets the recognition it deserves in movies - and a lot of time with music to, because some people seem to think that the lyrics are more important than they really are. Of course you want your lyrics to say something. There's a lot of poets out there - a lot of people who can write lyrics or poems and class themselves as songwriters, but they're not really - unless you can put a melody to those words that'll give people goosebumps. I always consider the music as the real challenge - arranging it probably so it comes around at the right time to really grab people and shake them.
Does Matthew (Barlow, vocalist) work out his own parts or do you lay down the vocal law?
If its one of my songs and I've written the lyric, then I lay them all out for him, even if there's a scream, I tell him where to do it. Matt's not really a good songwriter - he can write decent lyrics and stuff but he doesn't hear melodies. It's just not his thing - Matt's an entertainer and great performer, but he still hasn't mastered the art of songwriting yet, so its either me or Jim making his lyrical ideas work to a certain melody.
Similiarly, does Larry come up with his own solo parts?
Yes. Sometimes Jim Morris plays solo's on the record - say on Ghost Of Freedom - but any lead guitar melodies lines and rhythm guitar tracks are all by me. So basically the only thing that Larry plays on an Iced Earth record is a guitar solo here and there. On the Horror Show, I think Larry may have played about seven or eight minutes on the entire record. That's the only part that any lead guitarist has ever played in Iced Earth - just the solos. I've done a couple over the years but its not something i feel so i've never being one to do that. My fingers are fast enough and stuff, its just not my thing. It's neither songwriting or an art form to me - some people think it is and that's fine, but I rather say something with the song. Thats the way i've approached the whole thing - Iced Earth is a vehicle for me to write songs and my guitar is the tool to do it with. That's what i'm all about.
There is so much more shade and melody in Iced Earth's music than what features in the sound of most other metal acts. Would you see these aspects as key traits of your sound or do you just use slower parts to break things up a bit?
Its a bit of both I guess. My approach to songwriting is just honest. It's all pure emotion. I don't do anything because someone tells me I should or because it happens to be cool in the moment or music trends - that has nothing to do with it. What I do is pure, honest art that comes from within. So amongst writing a very heavy and brutal part which sums up how I'm feeling, I'm compelled to go into something very moody and emotional (eg, bring an acoustic guitar in and halve the speed or whatever) then i do it because it feels right. It's all what my heart and my soul are telling me to do at the time. That's the way I write music and that's the way it is. There isn't necessarily a formula I go for except following my heart.
What inspired the general horror theme - (Jack The Ripper, Jekyll and Hyde et al).
It all goes back to the earliest days of Iced Earth. I started this band 17 years ago under the name of Purgatory, which remained the name of the group until 1988. In that time period that was the thing that I wrote songs about most - horror movies. I'd say that 80 per cent of the material was based on horror stories at some point. We used to have these home made horror stage shows whenever we were playing. We'd have a guy dressed up like Jason from Friday 13th or Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Our singer at the time would dress up like Jack The Ripper - with the top hat and the cape, and we acted all this kind of stuff out on stage and it was really a lot of fun and a big part of the whole Purgatory thing. A few years ago I talked to Century Media about doing an EP called Monster and doing five songs based on classic monsters. We never did it - for whatever reason I don't remember. I had decided to put the whole Something Wicked storyline on hold for a while, so when I was looking for a theme to go for on the album, I figured horror would be an ideal theme - basing each individual song on a monster etc. Like Richard (Christy, drummer) I'm a big horror fan, so it all made perfect sense to go with our instincts there.
Would you say Horror Show is a significant departure from the lyrical style of previous albums?
Yes. I try to put as much of my personal feelings about things into every album, but I was confined to a certain realm of lyrical ideas when I decided to do the Horror Show theme. This album lyrically is not as deep as what I'd normally do, because of the subject matter. Like with the Something Wicked This Way Comes story - that is a very complex sort of science fiction / horror / fantasy story, its got conspiracy themes through it with real elements of human history involved. It was limiting in a way, and that was a little frustrating in the writing process. There were certain things that I was going through in my personal life at the time that I wanted to say, but I couldn't make it all work because I was confined to the monster idea. So I put my angst into the music, which also worked for the horror theme, which gave the dark and aggressive angle to the music, but if the theme was a bit more open I think Horror Show would have been a much deeper, darker record.
You use acoustic guitars quite regularly - and there's plenty of prime examples on the Horror Show (Dracula, Ghost Of Freedom,). Although live, with the exception of tracks like Watching Over Me you rarely bring the six string out. Is this because your songs tend to work as well in electric form as acoustic form - say on the intro to Stormrider?
I would actually rather be able to play the acoustic in every poistion that I can. Normally the main reason we don't do that is because of the stage set up. It's not easy to have acoustics set up properly and to be able to get to the electric guitar to make the following part work. On songs like Watching Over Me it was easier to do that, but it takes a very competent crew to make that happen. When you have an acoustic guitar onstage a lot of times you run the risk of having insanely bad feedback because of all the loud monitors, so the main reason I don't use acoustic guitar more live is because of the technical problems that it presents to the PA system.
Any tracks from The Horror Show that will be omitted from the live set?
Phantom Of The Opera Ghost - unfortunately we're not going to be able to do that live because we'd have to bring a female singer (to cover Yunhui Percifield's vocal parts on the track) on the entire tour and the expense of hiring a singer to just do one song wouldn't be practical.
Will there be more use of acoustics live on the tour this time around?
We are for the first time on this next tour going to be using in ear monitor systems and I think that will to eliminate some of that problem - we're also going to have a bigger crew on this tour than we've had before. So as the band grows and as we can afford to have more professional gear, this kind of stuff will change and we'll be using more acoustic guitars. Some parts sound much more superior on acoustic guitar - that's why we recorded them that why to begin with, but it all comes down to the crew we can afford.
As a songwriter, you're seen by many as being up there with the likes of Iron Maiden's Steve Harris and Metallica's James Hetfield in the metal World. You rhytm guitar playing is also of the highest caliber. Where next for Jon Scaffer in terms of solo projects outside of Iced Earth?
My side project Demons and Wizards (featuring the lead vocalist Hansi Kursch from Blind Guardian) are working on a second album. We're actually been best friends for 11 years now. In 1997 I was visiting Hansi on a promotional tour in Germany - I had a few days off, went into his house and started playing his acoustic guitar. He started singing and it sounded really cool. So we went to his studio, and in about three or four hours we had a song called My Last Sunrise - it ended up been the last track on the Demon And Wizzards record. We realized we had a song writing chemistry together to, which is a very rare thing, so in 1998, when Iced Earth and Blind Guardian were touring Spain together, we decided to do a project for real. We found the time in late 1999 and started the writing for what would be the first Demons And Wizards record. It came out in 2000 and was a huge success - we got a Grammy nomination for it in Germany, and in some countries it actually sold as much as Iced Earth has - its a very successful project. I'm actually working on the new Demons And Wizards album right now - I was up until 6.00 this morning writing music and recording it in my basement studio. Its coming out real nice - and i'm really excited about it. Its interesting working with a guy like Hanzi. He's got the whole business down - its like having a very competent partner because he knows the music business. He knows how to write music and lyrics, and we have a very strong chemistry in that way and in a business way, so its a very cool thing to have a partner like that - something that I'm not really used to. We don't view it as a project - we view it as another band and we take it very seriously.
Alive In Athens was a huuge commercial success in Europe and is surely one of the greatest live metal albums in history. Would you share the view that Iced Earth at their sonic peak live?
We put on a good show because we put everything we have into it, but as far as whether we're at our best live - that's all down to opinion. We try to give the crowd the best performance we can and the show they want, but we can't really afford to do the great stage shows that we would love - like the old Maiden and Kiss tours. If I had the money I could visualize the show that would blow your mind, but because of our financal situation we can't transform that into reality. We have to translate our individual power that we have into the people.
It seems that on The Horror show, you've captured your live ambience more than ever before.
On the production side we actually did things differently that we'd never done before- we recorded a lot of that record here at my studio at home, so I think that gave it some what of a different sound. Whenever you do a record, there's so many things extra you do on record that you can't do live, because of the ability of overdubs. Say the big chorus part on Dracula for example, there were five of us singing that chorus ten times to make it very thick and big sounding, but obviously we can't do that live because there's only me, Matt and Jimmy singing on stage so its a different thing...
Matthew has a quite incredable voice - full of angst, suited to mellower parts and complete with a towering range. What did you rate of his performance on The Horror Show?
I think he did a really good job - Matt has come a long way sice he joined the band. Before he joined the band he was more into the death metal scene and he was doing a lot low growl stuff and he could do some high screams but the middle range of his voice was not developed very much at that time. He's taken a lot of lessons and I've coached him through on what I need as a vocalist - to be able to capture a wide range of atmospheres. Matt's got a good work attitude - he was very receptive to that and worked hard at developing his full voice at high, middle and low ranges. Obviously there's always things from every performers standpoint that can be better - like on records for instance, you always want to beat the one you put out before. You always want to do your parts better, be more prepared and have good attitude in the studio - so that when Jim and I are talking someone through a part or changing a part, it will all come together. There's a lot of different factors that come into place, but I think that Horror Show was probably Matts best performance in the studio.
The harmonies on Jack peak to just about as high as any male vocalist can go. Was this done with Matt's genuine voice or via a harmonized microphone?
It would have been with Matt's natural voice, we don't ever use sythentic harmonizer's ever. Sometimes we might have to tune his voice a bit if he goes sharp or flat on some of those high ranges and we'll tune it up. Nowadays you can do that sort of thing with all the computers - its really amazing as to what you can do with a vocalist in the studio as compared to what you could do even five years ago. When I'm building a chorus, the high part would just be in there as a layer, flavour or texture - not necesarily to be out at the front, just to make the chorus sound bigger, that's something that you would not want to hear by itself. That vocal on its own would probably sound funny, but mixed in with all the other different harmonies and octives, it works. I can't sing the parts that high so what I'll do is play the melody line for him or sing it in a lower register. Then Jim and I will sit and work with him until he makes the vocal sound like the way I'm hearing it in my head.
Your dark backing vocals offer a very brooding feel to Iced Earth's songs - will there be any more Stormrider esque moments when you take up lead vocals?
Yes, but its not all brutal stuff that I'm going to be doing. On the Tribute To The Gods album. I'm singing lead vocals God Of Thunder. I'm also singing lead vocals on the track Hollow Man - a ballad that we've saved for the next Iced Earth studio album rather than putting it on the Horror Show.
Andy Law.
Thanks to Century Media and Jon Scaffer for making the interview happen - you rock!
The Horror Show - Promo CD Preview (Century Media)
Not to deny Iced Earth of their own sonic identity, but on the Horror Show, as is often the case, the bands influences shine through in their music - the epicism and harmonies of Iron Maiden, with the power riffing and extra heavy chords reminding one of Metallica. The fact that Maiden cover Translyvania makes an appearence tells you something about the former statement… Bass guitar seems to have a much more predominant role on the record - say on the epic Damien or Dragons Child. While the standard of musicality generally - rhythmic atmospherics, granate power, blistering riffery and deliciously smoother parts see Earth moving towards even greater levels of metal excellence. Solo's are more limited in the role they play on the record but this proves no bad thing. Gothic and harrowing, the record see's Iced Earth continuing to refuse to bow to outside commercial pressures. Europe has got the Iced Earth fever, but the UK and US still gives little ear to this classic band. The only solution to breakthrough on a wider scale would be comprimise - something Iced Earth have never been and probably never will be about. Jon Scaffer is a songwriter about creating music from the very heart and soul of his being - someone who'll put the music first and not a buck first with artifical pop songs. Although the groups sound does lend itself to the more classically composed slower tempos. An Iced Earth acoustic album, as daft as it may originally sound, would be just the tonic to give them the wider recognition (partly in their homeland of the United States) that they deserve.
Most importantly, there's a new batch of vintage Earth numbers to add to their live set. Thrashing opener Wolf, the acousically enchanting power ballad Ghost Of Freedom, the eastern tinged Im-Ho-Tep (Pharoahs Curse), the awesome slower crush of Frankenstein, the tempo swinging Dracula and momentious long ones in Damien and Phantom Of The Opera Ghost. Just like Night Of The Stormrider and Something Wicked This Way Comes, a classic has being spawned. Much more even - the best studio opus Iced Earth have written.
The music is the more challenging. As far as i'm concerned the lyrics are in a way the least important part of the song - the music is what provides the entire atmosphere of the song. I look at it in the way if you were watching a movie and muted the music out of a horror movie or a drama, its not going to be anywhere near as emotional if the music isn't there. The music is what makes you scared, its what makes you cry in a movie or a drama - something sad or very heavy. Music never gets the recognition it deserves in movies - and a lot of time with music to, because some people seem to think that the lyrics are more important than they really are. Of course you want your lyrics to say something. There's a lot of poets out there - a lot of people who can write lyrics or poems and class themselves as songwriters, but they're not really - unless you can put a melody to those words that'll give people goosebumps. I always consider the music as the real challenge - arranging it probably so it comes around at the right time to really grab people and shake them.
Does Matthew (Barlow, vocalist) work out his own parts or do you lay down the vocal law?
If its one of my songs and I've written the lyric, then I lay them all out for him, even if there's a scream, I tell him where to do it. Matt's not really a good songwriter - he can write decent lyrics and stuff but he doesn't hear melodies. It's just not his thing - Matt's an entertainer and great performer, but he still hasn't mastered the art of songwriting yet, so its either me or Jim making his lyrical ideas work to a certain melody.
Similiarly, does Larry come up with his own solo parts?
Yes. Sometimes Jim Morris plays solo's on the record - say on Ghost Of Freedom - but any lead guitar melodies lines and rhythm guitar tracks are all by me. So basically the only thing that Larry plays on an Iced Earth record is a guitar solo here and there. On the Horror Show, I think Larry may have played about seven or eight minutes on the entire record. That's the only part that any lead guitarist has ever played in Iced Earth - just the solos. I've done a couple over the years but its not something i feel so i've never being one to do that. My fingers are fast enough and stuff, its just not my thing. It's neither songwriting or an art form to me - some people think it is and that's fine, but I rather say something with the song. Thats the way i've approached the whole thing - Iced Earth is a vehicle for me to write songs and my guitar is the tool to do it with. That's what i'm all about.
There is so much more shade and melody in Iced Earth's music than what features in the sound of most other metal acts. Would you see these aspects as key traits of your sound or do you just use slower parts to break things up a bit?
Its a bit of both I guess. My approach to songwriting is just honest. It's all pure emotion. I don't do anything because someone tells me I should or because it happens to be cool in the moment or music trends - that has nothing to do with it. What I do is pure, honest art that comes from within. So amongst writing a very heavy and brutal part which sums up how I'm feeling, I'm compelled to go into something very moody and emotional (eg, bring an acoustic guitar in and halve the speed or whatever) then i do it because it feels right. It's all what my heart and my soul are telling me to do at the time. That's the way I write music and that's the way it is. There isn't necessarily a formula I go for except following my heart.
What inspired the general horror theme - (Jack The Ripper, Jekyll and Hyde et al).
It all goes back to the earliest days of Iced Earth. I started this band 17 years ago under the name of Purgatory, which remained the name of the group until 1988. In that time period that was the thing that I wrote songs about most - horror movies. I'd say that 80 per cent of the material was based on horror stories at some point. We used to have these home made horror stage shows whenever we were playing. We'd have a guy dressed up like Jason from Friday 13th or Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Our singer at the time would dress up like Jack The Ripper - with the top hat and the cape, and we acted all this kind of stuff out on stage and it was really a lot of fun and a big part of the whole Purgatory thing. A few years ago I talked to Century Media about doing an EP called Monster and doing five songs based on classic monsters. We never did it - for whatever reason I don't remember. I had decided to put the whole Something Wicked storyline on hold for a while, so when I was looking for a theme to go for on the album, I figured horror would be an ideal theme - basing each individual song on a monster etc. Like Richard (Christy, drummer) I'm a big horror fan, so it all made perfect sense to go with our instincts there.
Would you say Horror Show is a significant departure from the lyrical style of previous albums?
Yes. I try to put as much of my personal feelings about things into every album, but I was confined to a certain realm of lyrical ideas when I decided to do the Horror Show theme. This album lyrically is not as deep as what I'd normally do, because of the subject matter. Like with the Something Wicked This Way Comes story - that is a very complex sort of science fiction / horror / fantasy story, its got conspiracy themes through it with real elements of human history involved. It was limiting in a way, and that was a little frustrating in the writing process. There were certain things that I was going through in my personal life at the time that I wanted to say, but I couldn't make it all work because I was confined to the monster idea. So I put my angst into the music, which also worked for the horror theme, which gave the dark and aggressive angle to the music, but if the theme was a bit more open I think Horror Show would have been a much deeper, darker record.
You use acoustic guitars quite regularly - and there's plenty of prime examples on the Horror Show (Dracula, Ghost Of Freedom,). Although live, with the exception of tracks like Watching Over Me you rarely bring the six string out. Is this because your songs tend to work as well in electric form as acoustic form - say on the intro to Stormrider?
I would actually rather be able to play the acoustic in every poistion that I can. Normally the main reason we don't do that is because of the stage set up. It's not easy to have acoustics set up properly and to be able to get to the electric guitar to make the following part work. On songs like Watching Over Me it was easier to do that, but it takes a very competent crew to make that happen. When you have an acoustic guitar onstage a lot of times you run the risk of having insanely bad feedback because of all the loud monitors, so the main reason I don't use acoustic guitar more live is because of the technical problems that it presents to the PA system.
Any tracks from The Horror Show that will be omitted from the live set?
Phantom Of The Opera Ghost - unfortunately we're not going to be able to do that live because we'd have to bring a female singer (to cover Yunhui Percifield's vocal parts on the track) on the entire tour and the expense of hiring a singer to just do one song wouldn't be practical.
Will there be more use of acoustics live on the tour this time around?
We are for the first time on this next tour going to be using in ear monitor systems and I think that will to eliminate some of that problem - we're also going to have a bigger crew on this tour than we've had before. So as the band grows and as we can afford to have more professional gear, this kind of stuff will change and we'll be using more acoustic guitars. Some parts sound much more superior on acoustic guitar - that's why we recorded them that why to begin with, but it all comes down to the crew we can afford.
As a songwriter, you're seen by many as being up there with the likes of Iron Maiden's Steve Harris and Metallica's James Hetfield in the metal World. You rhytm guitar playing is also of the highest caliber. Where next for Jon Scaffer in terms of solo projects outside of Iced Earth?
My side project Demons and Wizards (featuring the lead vocalist Hansi Kursch from Blind Guardian) are working on a second album. We're actually been best friends for 11 years now. In 1997 I was visiting Hansi on a promotional tour in Germany - I had a few days off, went into his house and started playing his acoustic guitar. He started singing and it sounded really cool. So we went to his studio, and in about three or four hours we had a song called My Last Sunrise - it ended up been the last track on the Demon And Wizzards record. We realized we had a song writing chemistry together to, which is a very rare thing, so in 1998, when Iced Earth and Blind Guardian were touring Spain together, we decided to do a project for real. We found the time in late 1999 and started the writing for what would be the first Demons And Wizards record. It came out in 2000 and was a huge success - we got a Grammy nomination for it in Germany, and in some countries it actually sold as much as Iced Earth has - its a very successful project. I'm actually working on the new Demons And Wizards album right now - I was up until 6.00 this morning writing music and recording it in my basement studio. Its coming out real nice - and i'm really excited about it. Its interesting working with a guy like Hanzi. He's got the whole business down - its like having a very competent partner because he knows the music business. He knows how to write music and lyrics, and we have a very strong chemistry in that way and in a business way, so its a very cool thing to have a partner like that - something that I'm not really used to. We don't view it as a project - we view it as another band and we take it very seriously.
Alive In Athens was a huuge commercial success in Europe and is surely one of the greatest live metal albums in history. Would you share the view that Iced Earth at their sonic peak live?
We put on a good show because we put everything we have into it, but as far as whether we're at our best live - that's all down to opinion. We try to give the crowd the best performance we can and the show they want, but we can't really afford to do the great stage shows that we would love - like the old Maiden and Kiss tours. If I had the money I could visualize the show that would blow your mind, but because of our financal situation we can't transform that into reality. We have to translate our individual power that we have into the people.
It seems that on The Horror show, you've captured your live ambience more than ever before.
On the production side we actually did things differently that we'd never done before- we recorded a lot of that record here at my studio at home, so I think that gave it some what of a different sound. Whenever you do a record, there's so many things extra you do on record that you can't do live, because of the ability of overdubs. Say the big chorus part on Dracula for example, there were five of us singing that chorus ten times to make it very thick and big sounding, but obviously we can't do that live because there's only me, Matt and Jimmy singing on stage so its a different thing...
Matthew has a quite incredable voice - full of angst, suited to mellower parts and complete with a towering range. What did you rate of his performance on The Horror Show?
I think he did a really good job - Matt has come a long way sice he joined the band. Before he joined the band he was more into the death metal scene and he was doing a lot low growl stuff and he could do some high screams but the middle range of his voice was not developed very much at that time. He's taken a lot of lessons and I've coached him through on what I need as a vocalist - to be able to capture a wide range of atmospheres. Matt's got a good work attitude - he was very receptive to that and worked hard at developing his full voice at high, middle and low ranges. Obviously there's always things from every performers standpoint that can be better - like on records for instance, you always want to beat the one you put out before. You always want to do your parts better, be more prepared and have good attitude in the studio - so that when Jim and I are talking someone through a part or changing a part, it will all come together. There's a lot of different factors that come into place, but I think that Horror Show was probably Matts best performance in the studio.
The harmonies on Jack peak to just about as high as any male vocalist can go. Was this done with Matt's genuine voice or via a harmonized microphone?
It would have been with Matt's natural voice, we don't ever use sythentic harmonizer's ever. Sometimes we might have to tune his voice a bit if he goes sharp or flat on some of those high ranges and we'll tune it up. Nowadays you can do that sort of thing with all the computers - its really amazing as to what you can do with a vocalist in the studio as compared to what you could do even five years ago. When I'm building a chorus, the high part would just be in there as a layer, flavour or texture - not necesarily to be out at the front, just to make the chorus sound bigger, that's something that you would not want to hear by itself. That vocal on its own would probably sound funny, but mixed in with all the other different harmonies and octives, it works. I can't sing the parts that high so what I'll do is play the melody line for him or sing it in a lower register. Then Jim and I will sit and work with him until he makes the vocal sound like the way I'm hearing it in my head.
Your dark backing vocals offer a very brooding feel to Iced Earth's songs - will there be any more Stormrider esque moments when you take up lead vocals?
Yes, but its not all brutal stuff that I'm going to be doing. On the Tribute To The Gods album. I'm singing lead vocals God Of Thunder. I'm also singing lead vocals on the track Hollow Man - a ballad that we've saved for the next Iced Earth studio album rather than putting it on the Horror Show.
Andy Law.
Thanks to Century Media and Jon Scaffer for making the interview happen - you rock!
The Horror Show - Promo CD Preview (Century Media)
Not to deny Iced Earth of their own sonic identity, but on the Horror Show, as is often the case, the bands influences shine through in their music - the epicism and harmonies of Iron Maiden, with the power riffing and extra heavy chords reminding one of Metallica. The fact that Maiden cover Translyvania makes an appearence tells you something about the former statement… Bass guitar seems to have a much more predominant role on the record - say on the epic Damien or Dragons Child. While the standard of musicality generally - rhythmic atmospherics, granate power, blistering riffery and deliciously smoother parts see Earth moving towards even greater levels of metal excellence. Solo's are more limited in the role they play on the record but this proves no bad thing. Gothic and harrowing, the record see's Iced Earth continuing to refuse to bow to outside commercial pressures. Europe has got the Iced Earth fever, but the UK and US still gives little ear to this classic band. The only solution to breakthrough on a wider scale would be comprimise - something Iced Earth have never been and probably never will be about. Jon Scaffer is a songwriter about creating music from the very heart and soul of his being - someone who'll put the music first and not a buck first with artifical pop songs. Although the groups sound does lend itself to the more classically composed slower tempos. An Iced Earth acoustic album, as daft as it may originally sound, would be just the tonic to give them the wider recognition (partly in their homeland of the United States) that they deserve.
Most importantly, there's a new batch of vintage Earth numbers to add to their live set. Thrashing opener Wolf, the acousically enchanting power ballad Ghost Of Freedom, the eastern tinged Im-Ho-Tep (Pharoahs Curse), the awesome slower crush of Frankenstein, the tempo swinging Dracula and momentious long ones in Damien and Phantom Of The Opera Ghost. Just like Night Of The Stormrider and Something Wicked This Way Comes, a classic has being spawned. Much more even - the best studio opus Iced Earth have written.
