Iced Earth is an American heavy metal band that combines influences from thrash metal, power metal, NWOBHM, progressive metal as well as gothic touches.
The central figure of Iced Earth is rhythm guitarist and songwriter Jon Schaffer, who formed Purgatory in Indiana in 1984. After moving to Florida and changing their name to Iced Earth, the group's Enter the Realm demo was popular enough that they released an eponymous debut LP with Century Media Records. Since then the band has gone through numerous lineup changes, thanks in part to the authoritarian rule of Schaffer. Vocalist Matt Barlow joined the band (after a three-year band hiatus following Night of the Stormrider) for Burnt Offerings, largely based on Dante's Inferno. Barlow's vocals proved extremely popular and he remained with the band for many years, eventually parting amicably with the band in June 2003 to pursue a career with the United States Department of Homeland Security. Conveniently, singer Tim 'Ripper' Owens soon left Judas Priest (to make room for returning original vocalist Rob Halford) and became Iced Earth's new vocalist. His first album with the band, The Glorious Burden, is an examination of many aspects of warfare and military figures who have shaped the modern world. Its topics range from the Declaration of Independence to 9/11 to Napoleon Bonaparte, and there are three songs dealing with the Battle of Gettysburg. There is a limited edition where the Gettysburg Trilogy is moved to a second disc and the songs Waterloo and the unplugged version of When the Eagle Cries are added to the first disc. The album's theme became the centre of a recent controversy after Schaffer gave an interview to Canadian heavy metal magazine Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles. After the interview was published, Schaffer accused the magazine of having taking him out of context and of pushing an anti-American bias, and subsequently announced that the band would boycott the magazine in the future. When The Eagle Cries had been one of the few pro-war songs released by the music industry.
