"Plagues of Babylon" is the eleventh studio album by the
American heavy metal band Iced Earth. What? Eleventh! Honestly I never paid
attention to the kind of music Iced Earth played as I made something imaginary
by noticing their dressing attire which is typical Heavy Metal. While browsing
some albums in youtube I decided to just check out the new album as I saw many
people reviewing it. What I was expecting from the album was some heavy grungy
beats, insane vocals, a bit aggressive, groovy, some crunchy riffs, melody at
its best and amazing song structure. Guess what, the album had everything in it
but in Iced Earth’s way. Let’s get into it right? Wear your boots, jeans, bullet
belts, leather jackets and let’s roll.
The album starts its journey with the title track "Plagues of
Babylon" which is quiet a risk as you want your listener to at least reach half
of the album for experiencing the title track. But the confidence in class and
experience of almost 30 years being in the scene is a huge exceptional region
of putting the title track in the beginning. The track carries a strong vibe of
mental preparation before war and which clicked in my mind and I was hooked
into it from the first very second. The song positively makes connection with
you and you actually get on a horse and start fighting in the war in your
subconscious. The solo and the different variation in the sound almost made it
heavenly as the vocals hit on your face specially with “Unleash the plagues of Babylon…”.
Next is "Democide" which again keep some space in front of you to prepare the
plot for enjoying the upcoming destructive piece of music. The riffs are so
insanely crunchy that the whole body starts moving and some sort of follows the
in out combination of vocals and riffs. "The Culling" suddenly rolls in before
you could sort out how the next song would be. The lyrics of this song really
heated me up as more than the other elements my focus was on what the song is
saying.
I really loved the way the band played with tempos with some
insanely crunchy riffs and peaceful melodic solos. "Among The Living Dead", "Resistance", "The End?", fell much into the same zone of arrangement. The variation in vocals,
riffs, tempos quietly interlink with your mind and body. "If I Could See You" is
one of my favorite, it’s a peaceful song with insanely well written by
Schaffer. The solo part just gives some pinches near the heart and you will
feel like you are top of a mountain feeling the speedy cold breeze. "Cthulhu" for
me is the most well arranged song; the song structure is so much complicated
but yet expressed in the best way.
The album wraps up with an insane outro FUCK YOUR COUCH
MOTHERFUCKER , before delivering some peaceful but destructive songs like "Peacemaker",
my favorite "Parasite" ,"Spirit of the Times" and for me "Highwayman" is at the perfect position as after listening
to the album for almost hour you need a groove and the song sings the feel of
good bye, I only can hear I AM STILL ALIVE! The outro is a relaxation to the
listeners after bearing the guys expressing their wicked stories for a hour. So
they bid goodbyes with some fun. HaHa, Okay now my legs are sweating, I am now
going to enjoy the whole discography of the band. If I would have known this band at least few years back I could have done some comparison with old records. But past is past and lets focus on present as a fresh stuff.
Tracks that need to be in your playlist – Plagues of Babylon
, The Culling , If I Could See You, Parasite
My rating – 4.4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment