2nd Review of ***** The Blessed and The Damned by Iced Earth – The Definitive Collection of Their Work

I am a huge fan of Iced Earth.  Surprisingly, 4 discs of their stuff has gotten me nearly endless hours of happy listening enjoyment .  The other 2 discs are Days of Purgatory.  In the following blog: “50 Great Metal Bands: Maybe Some Are More Deserving, But I Figure This Is a Good List,” I rated Iced Earth number 3.  Also on the following list for www.amazon.com, I rated this work, The Blessed and The Damned of Iced Earth number 3, “40 Great Metal Bands and an Awesome Album by Each.”

Metal has been a defining characteristic of my life and it really started before my time with the Baby Boomer generation’s band Black Sabbath, which has also been a favorite of my generation as well, and may continue to enthrall younger generation for years to come.  So, IMHO, it is probably a good idea to pick up one of the great musical works of our time because I do believe that some of the metal of our time will be remembered as Beethoven and other classical masters will be remembered.

2nd Review of **** Days of Purgatory by Iced Earth – All That Metallica Could Have Been

While Metallica stopped writing music like this, Iced Earth stepped up and filled the void, and did it even better that Metallica had ever done.  Iced Earth packs the punch of Metallica’s heaviest songs like Damage Inc., and for lack of originality I subtracted a star.  However, don’t let that stop you from purchasing this album, as it is a tremendous work of art, and maybe on a different day of the week I would have rated it 5 stars, just depending on the mood that I am in.

I first got into Iced Earth about 14 years ago.  That would be 1999.  Days of Purgatory was my first purchase from this band.  Perhaps, that makes me a dinosaur, but when I put these discs into the player they never disappoint me.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I could listen to this stuff by itself indefinitely without getting tired of it.  The only reason to move on and put different stuff in my player is for the sake of diversifying, not out of getting bored of the songs.