Thursday, June 27: Iced Earth, “Days of Rage”
For the first time in a very long time, Jon Shaffer and Iced Earth actually sounded like they were having fun on Dystopia: songs like “Days of Rage” were light on their feet and looser than anything Shaffer had delivered since the first half of Something Wicked This Way Comes- even Horror Show felt a bit stiff and overly mannered. Maybe then-new singer Stu Block shook something loose in Shaffer, as his singing and overall approach was shaggier and more rock and roll than that of longtime frontman Matt Barlow, but this came as a welcome shock after a solid decade of fussy conceptual pieces and theme albums (even though the songs on Dystopia were themselves thematically linked). “Days of Rage” was simply a banger, and a fun one at that, and Jim Morris’ production wisely avoided the rigidity of the last several Iced Earth records in favor something a bit warmer and live-sounding, especially in Brent Smedley’s drums. And although Shaffer would soon return to writing lengthier and conceptual pieces, Block’s swagger clearly brought something out of him, to the point where this song no longer felt like such an outlier.
