*NOTE: This review was written by my younger brother. He was home for the weekend, wanted to write a review for this band I had never heard of. Here comes his review...

First off, let me say that there are most likely going to be two types of people reading this review:

1.People just getting into Iced Earth and wondering which album they should start off with, and
2.People already fans of Iced Earth looking to see if this album is worth making a place in their Iced Earth collection.

If you fall into category #1, I suggest you get Iced Earth’s live album “Alive in Athens” to start with. It covers a huge amount of Iced Earth’s catalogue, and contains quite a few songs from “Night of the Stormrider” with better vocals and improved leads. Category #2 people, here goes:

It will take some time getting used to John Greely’s voice as he is not up to par with Matt Barlow. Still, John does a decent job on the album. If you’re desperate to hear two studio-recorded tracks from this album sung by Matt and not John, then go out and buy Days of Purgatory. For people willing to listen to John’s voice (which isn’t bad by any means), here’s a track-by-track run-through:

Angel’s Holocaust: Great album opener. It blasts in with a powerful choir doubling with an awesome power chord progression. It almost sounds like a movie soundtrack from the start. It calms down with an acoustic guitar and slows down with John Greely coming in on vocals. He is a decent vocalist, albeit a bit bright and “Judas Priest” sounding. A great song nonetheless.

Stormrider: Starts off great with an acoustic intro but then quickly turns into a thrashy guitar riff. This is where the vocals take a serious nose-dive, and by the time the “Stormrider” chorus comes in, I find myself hitting “Next” on the stereo. Some guitar leads here sound horrible as well.

The Path I Choose: Pretty mediocre. Greely sings “ah” along to the guitar line near the start, and sounds pretty lame with his bright singing. Again, on the chorus, he’s screaming like he’s auditioning for Pantera. Again, the guitar leads aren’t very melodic and sound way too chromatic to sound any good.

Before the Vision: Wow. Greely’s voice SHINES on this track. Absolutely beautiful. There are no electric guitars on here—it’s all John’s voice and acoustic parts. Too bad the song is only one minute and twenty-three seconds, but that’s understandable as this is a concept album and therefore the songs don’t have to necessarily stand on their own.

Mystical End: Unfortunately, this contains some of the WORST guitar solos I’ve ever heard on any record. Other than that, nothing really stands out on this song, as the guitars and drums basically keep the song chugging along.

Desert Rain: Not bad at all, although if Iced Earth were going for a “Middle Eastern” sound here like they were, they should’ve done more with the instrumentation than just plunking out a Gypsy scale with a guitar on the clean channel. Two great examples of creating that “Middle Eastern” atmosphere in a heavy metal song are Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam” and Dream Theater’s “Home,” which both used actual Middle Eastern instruments in creating the mood. Iced Earth haven’t really picked up on that yet.

Pure Evil: Contrary to the title of the track, this doesn’t start out blazingly fast and “evil” sounding. The intro displays one of the few examples on this album where the rhythm and lead guitars work well together. The lyrics help move the story along as well. Good song.

Reaching the End: Beautiful. Just like “Before the Vision,” it features acoustic guitars and John Greely singing in the range best for his voice. This is an extremely singable track.

Travel in Stygian: This clocks in at over 9 minutes—something unheard of in heavy metal back in 1992 when this album was originally recorded! There’s plenty of tempo and key changes in the song to keep the song moving along and does a great job of closing the story.

Overall, this CD is a sophomoric effort at a concept album, and while it has some great parts to it, there are plenty of bad parts, both in the singing and guitar department. I can’t bring myself to sit through the whole thing back-to-back like a concept album is supposed to make you want to do because it’s not consistent. Unless you’re dying to hear the whole cheesy story this album takes you through, I’d suggest picking up “Days of Purgatory”—it has the two best tracks on this CD and it’s sung by a more capable singer anyways.


Recommended: No

Great Music to Play While: Waking up