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Dystopia is the eleventh studio album (though only the tenth of original material) by US power metal act Iced Earth. The 2011 album is the first release to feature the lead vocals of Stu Block, who also sings in the progressive/melodic death metal act Into Eternity. Stu is the fifth lead singer the band has had within their ever volatile line-up, and he replaces long-time vocalist Matt Barlow, who had returned to the band between 2008 and 2011 after a period where Tim “Ripper” Owens fronted the band. The only album that was made in Barlow’s second tenure with the band was 2008’s The Crucible of Man, which I personally felt was actually one of the band’s weaker releases. Although it was still a pretty solid album, it wasn’t exactly a comeback to the form of albums such as Night of the Stormrider, Burnt Offerings, and Horror show. Iced Earth really has nothing to prove in 2011 despite this since they have a spectacular back catalogue, but one has to wonder if they can survive a second departure from the very popular Barlow, after all a good portion of the band’s so called fanbase was very unforgiving while Tim Owens was in the band.
While some may try to have you believe that Iced Earth without Barlow is not true Iced Earth, as is perhaps most evident by the lower regard to the two albums Tim Owens sang on, but it’s my opinion that Stu Block has really helped to revitalise the classic Iced Earth sound. Not only is Block a very talented singer, but he’s also jumped straight into writing alongside guitarist and band leader Jon Schaffer. He should be more easily received by existing fans of the band than Owens was as his vocals on this album are mostly of the same sort of style as Matt Barlow’s, unlike Owens who had a very different approach to the material. It gets better that this though as Block is also capable of vocals more akin to Owens (you’ll know them when you hear them) himself, and he’s not afraid to use these either. Stu Block is like the best of both worlds of the last couple of Iced Earth releases, the man’s vocals are like Barlow and Owens rolled into one. Stu also uses some more regular melodic singing for the lighter parts of the album. Barlow may be the classic Iced Earth singer, but Stu Block comes very close to stealing his crown with just this single album. Coupled with some of the best songs the band has done for a few years it’s very clear that Iced Earth has risen once again, and they’re to conquer the metal world with Dystopia.
Musically although there was some talk about Dystopia being a back to the roots album for Iced Earth, the album actually has something in common with just about every past release of the band, although overall it’s more in the vein of the Dark Saga – Horror Show era. There is a lot of variation in the music and no one song can really be used to represent the album as a whole. Everything remains within the classic Iced Earth sound, that being mostly within the USPM mould, but with some parts that have more in common with traditional and thrash metal. The track Dark City and Equilibrium in particular scream out the Iron Maiden influence in the band, while Boiling Point and Days of Rage are a pair of shorter and more aggressive numbers which kind of bring mind to the earliest albums by the band. Anthem is more of a catchy track with a clean guitar intro and a sing-along chorus. If you think of past tracks like Melancholy (Holy Martyr) or I Died For You you’re not far off the sound of Anthem. The closer, Tragedy and Triumph, has an intro that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on The Glorious Burden. End of Innocence is a lighter ballad, although they still heavy it up for the chorus, putting it in the same vein as tracks like When the Eagle Cries. The only thing the album really lacks is a long epic track in the vein of Dante’s Inferno (which the band recently re-recorded with Stu and released as a free download), The Coming Curse or The Phantom Opera Ghost. Tragedy and Triumph comes close but some of the 7:44 length is taken up by silence and a hidden track.
Lyrically it is very much like Horror Show in its premise that many of the songs are centred on a single wide topic, but isn’t a concept album in itself. A couple of the tracks (the title track and Tragedy and Triumph) on the album deal directly with the Something Wicked saga, which the band’s last two albums in particular dealt with in full conceptual style, while others deal with dystopian films such as V for Vendetta, Dark City and Soylent Green. Other lyrics do move away from dystopian themes such as End of Innocence, which Stu Block wrote about his mother who has terminal cancer, but such topics fit with the mood of the album.
As seems to be becoming quite common now there are actually multiple versions of Dystopia available. I’m not sure if Dystopia comes under the same deal as albums such as Symphony X’s latest Iconoclast where it’s actually the so called special/limited edition of the release that is as the band intended it, but whether tracks such as Iron Will and Soylent Green were always meant to be bonus tracks or not is beyond the point. Dystopia wouldn’t be a truly complete album if these tracks were absent, as they are on the regular edition of the album. I have to stress having reviewed the limited edition of the album that you would be seriously missing out if you didn’t go with this version, so just ignore the so-called standard version of Dystopia and go for the limited edition. You’ll also get an alternate version of the song Anthem for your money, which is not exactly essential, but still worth a listen.
Normally I don’t take bonus tracks into consideration when scoring an album, and I’m not going to make an exception here because even without Iron Will and Soylent Green Dystopia is still the best Iced Earth album since 2001’s Horror Show ten years previously. Yes you should get the limited edition (or if you’re a real super-fan with some cash floating about, the deluxe box set that contains a number of other Iced Earth goodies), but even the regular edition is worthy of recognition to sit alongside albums such as the aforementioned Horror Show, Night of the Stormrider and Burnt Offerings. The album may be dystopian themed, but based on this, Iced Earth can look forward to a much brighter future than the album’s theme paints.
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scored at 9.6/10, "Masterpiece/Classic Album")