Iced Earth – Burnt Offerings (1995)

Iced Earth were always an anomaly within USPM, far darker and much more aggressive than their peers and unlike the rest of the bands from that scene, they did not present any latent hard rock influences and sought to push power metal to new heights. Taking the rapid galloping rhythms of Metallica and exaggerating them to a machine gun stutter while combining them with early Slayer’s penchant for chromatic melodies and maintaining a heavy metal foundation defined both Iced Earth and Night of the Stormrider as forward thinking albums in a subgenre far too concerned with its past. Burnt Offerings takes those established ideas, slows down the pace and ventures towards pathways that have never been explored in USPM to produce what may be the subgenre’s crowning achievement.

While a lot of emphasis has always been put on Jon Schaffer’s rhythm guitar playing(rightfully so), Randall Shawver’s lead playing truely carves out these songs. His leads are heavily on featured on every piece of the album. Even though there are only three solos on the album, the first to close out “Burning Oasis” to build tension into the final chorus on “Burnt Offerings” and as a conclusion for the first part of “Dante’s Inferno”. Each of these solos significantly alter the flow of these songs instead of feeling like embellishments on top, often working like narratives within the overall narrative to accentuate the emotional weight. Though more importantly it’s Randall’s harmonies and leads throughout the riffs that fully unleash this album’s potential. Rather than sticking to the narrow confines of harmonizing in simple intervals as dictated by the scale, the band fully embrace chromaticism and parallel harmony with occasional jolts of dissonance to create a dark yet majestic sound and is manipulated perfectly either to create tension that builds up as the leads get more dissonant, to make the clean guitars even more ominous or to make the choruses even more memorable with an exotic tinge. This approach is amplified by the use of synths that follow the same logic and add another layer to the oppressive atmosphere on the album without ever sounding convoluted or out of place. Interestingly, this methodology in regards to melody and harmony was already perfected by many of the European death metal bands but from a completely different perspective. Iced Earth never approach those levels of brutality despite how sinister the album feels but opt for something anthemic instead.

Jon Schaffer’s meat and potatoes riffs have always been imbued with the capability of carrying a melody. The almost polyrhythmic nature of his gallops would mean nothing without the simple yet idiosyncratic chord progressions that are chopped up within the palm mutes but still come out clearly. At first glance it would seem that the riffs follow established patterns that are common to metal but subsequent listens reveal that these chord progressions show minute variations that completely change their feel into something much more energetic and almost alive. While such riffs are the foundation of Iced Earth’s previous entries, Burnt Offerings strips them down and explores slower tempi to accomodate for all the aforementioned melodies. The inherent thrashiness is thus reduced and this adds a sense of gravitas to the album that was missing from past successes. Of note is the use of extended clean guitar passages to further convey the majestic sinister atmosphere and that allow even greater forays into this album’s unique sense of melody. And like the convergent evolution of this band with death metal, the same can be said in regards to doom metal and its extended clean guitar passages.

Power metal by its very nature depends on the ability of its lead vocalist as much as it does on the composition and execution of the instrumental. Matt Barlow’s status as one of metal’s best singers is rarely questioned nowadays but what is really impressive is his ability to perfectly adapt to the needs of each passage, from the pseudo death growls that conclude the album’s epic “Dante’s Inferno” to the light airy singing on “The Pierced Spirit” or the screamed but clean high notes on “Creator Failure”, Matt Barlow has full mastery over his enormous range and adapts his technique for the particular need of each song without ever attempting to take the spotlight on what are very dense compositions.

Through all the twists and turns this album throws at the listener, it somehow remains completely memorable and full of infectious refrains and choruses Even the almost seventeen minute closer is easily digestible due to how well the band arrange their melodies and maintain focus throughout to evoke their particular vision. “Dante’s Inferno” is one of the greatest long-form songs in metal paradoxically by how succinct it feels as each part guides through the nine circles like Virgil guided Dante with swells in emotion up to the earth shattering climax. Ultimately Burnt Offerings stands as an unrecognized classic and the pinnacle of the aggressive USPM pushed beyond its logical limit and borders extreme metal in atmosphere without foregoing what makes heavy metal so great.