Live in Ancient Kourion (2013)

Stu Block has managed to do what I thought was impossible do justice to material from Iced Earth's full discography, and originally sung by no less than 4 different people. He can out-scream Ripper, and even out-emote Harlow. And the whole band sounds tight, energized, and the crowd is INTO it. That a band this far into their career can pull off a live album like this is really remarkable.

If you like Iced Earth old stuff or new this is a must buy. And if you like power metal at all grab it.

Now I just have to wait for the Blu-ray to come out in the U.S.

5 stars... it would be silly to expect anything better than this! Watched the dvd in one sitting... with my girlfriend... we were both mesmerized!

I'm a big fan of Iced Earth, they're probably my favorite band. That may lead you to believe this will be a biased review; however, often times the biggest fans are also the harshest critics. To build credibility, here's a few criticisms I have toward Iced Earth:

* "Framing Armageddon" & "Crucible of Man"... I've picked about 5 songs between the 2 albums that I really enjoy, the rest are pretty much boring/filler to me.

* I liked Barlow the 1st time around, buy why get rid of Ripper to bring back a "part-time" Barlow?

* "Festivals of the Wicked" why release 2 shows from the same summer festival tour? The 2 Barlow shows have virtually the same setlist.

But for "Live in Ancient Kourion" ... Iced Earth has nailed it! As Jon states in one of the interviews, the setlist will never please everyone. It's cool he acknowledged that. He followed that up with his idea to release live material for each of the future tour cycles, each including many different songs from their back catalogue. To me, that sounds like a great response to the setlist conundrum.

Seeing them in concert on the Dystopia tour helped me to fully embrace Stu. He's great with the crowd, but more importantly, he's a terrific singer. This live album should give that same opportunity to the fans whom have not seen Iced Earth live with Stu. He sings low & high, & everywhere in between. Only negative observation I have thus far with Stu is his over-the-top performance of "Dracula" on "Live in Ancient Kourion." It's impressive to hear him switch from low to high so often, so quickly... but it sorta detracts from the song, changes it from an emotional masterpiece, into a vocal lesson/demonstration. Although apart from Dracula, upon 1st listen, every other song on here was done brilliantly. With these new live versions, I will have a hard time choosing my favorite version of many of these songs... I look forward to the challenge.

I'm also looking forward to many powerful years of output from Iced Earth with Stu on vocals. This album is great for anyone wanting to see how Stu fits into the Iced Earth fold, it's great for people just starting out with Iced Earth, & most importantly, it's just a great live album, period.

Buy Live in Ancient Kourion (2013) Now

No question Iced Earth presented their fans with a true gem. This is simply not just their best live album ever, but one of the best ever in the genre. Why did I buy this album? First, I'm a fan. But, that's not very useful if you are wondering whether you should get it, is it? First should be that Iced Earth truly play inspired and true metal. Emotion, dedication, love shown to their fans all of it is there. Second, the quality of the material is the highest. Songs on this live album sound better than on their studio releases. Third, the musicianship is second to none. Finally, in Stu Iced Earth got the world class singer. I don't care whether you're a fan of Dickinson, Halford, Dio, Ripper, Barlow or someone else, Stu will impress you. If you're a metal fan you should own this record ... If you're an Iced Earth fan, ... well, it's a no brainer.

Read Best Reviews of Live in Ancient Kourion (2013) Here

My first reaction to seeing this product on Amazon was "Really? Another live recording?". While it is only their second actual live cd release, the DVD set 'Festivals of the Wicked' is less than two years old. Between that and the Alive in Athens recordings, I wasn't sure if a fan would need a new recording. But since this is the first live recording with new vocalist Stu Block, I decided to give it a chance.

Let's backtrack a bit Iced Earth had all of the markings of a band on life support by the time 2011 arrived. Longtime fan favorite Matt Barlow returned to the band for 2010's 'The Crucible of Man', otherwise known as 'Something Wicked Part 2', the conceptual sequel to 2007's 'Framing Armageddon (Something Wicked Part 1)'. This was very odd since Tim "Ripper" Owens had provided vocals for the previous album, so Jon Schaffer even went as far as to have "Framing Armageddon" re-recorded with Barlow on vocals for the 'Box of the Wicked' boxed set.

This proved to be pointless in the end, as Barlow's return was short-lived; he quit the band again in 2011 to spend time with his family. Truth be told, the Something Wicked saga had turned out to be a massive disappointment; after the awesome trio of songs that began the saga at the tail end of 1998's 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', it was almost 9 years before the band picked up the story. By then, many fans had lost interest. Compounding matters even more was the sheer lack of interesting material in 2007's 'Framing Armageddon', which contained bland, overproduced anthems that were not sonic brethren to the original three anthems. Ripper Owens's uninspired vocal performance made the album utterly forgettable; in fact, his tenure with the band never really worked. Whereas he had fire and personality in his stint in Judas Priest, he never quite found his sweet spot in Iced Earth, and was often guilty of over-singing (even by Iced Earth standards).

Even Barlow's 2010 return didn't save "The Crucible of Man" from mixed reception from fans and critics; it seemed that Jon Schaffer's songwriting ability had severely degraded. After the mixed bag that was 2001's "Horror Show", and the average-to-poor quality of 'This Glorious Burden' through 'Crucible', it seemed like the band had finally exhausted everything they brought to the table.

Enter Stu Block Stu came to notoriety as lead vocalist for innovative progressive metal band Into Eternity. His voice in that band could be described as versatile, as he oscillated between smooth clean vocals, piercing shrieketto, and guttural death vocals. It was unclear if he'd be another "Ripper", having difficulty finding a way to fit his voice with a new band. But 2011's 'Dystopia' was a pleasant surprise. Stu managed to find a niche in his new band, modifying his vocal approach to better fit the more 'staccato' vocal attack required of Iced Earth. If he was guilty of one thing, it is that his lower vocals oftentimes sound eerily similar to Matthew Barlow's (at times, it's hard to tell them apart). But his higher register carried much more power and gravitas than Barlow's did; where Barlow's falsetto often petered out, Stu possesses a higher range and greater degree of comfort and power. Stu's solid presence, coupled with Jon Schaffer's 'back to basics' approach of just writing simple, quality metal anthems made 'Dystopia' a surprisingly solid effort. While not a classic, it was far away the band's best effort since 1998's 'Something Wicked', and injected the band with new life.

So it does make sense to a degree that the band would release another live album (assuming of course, that fans want to add another 2.5 hours of much of the same material to their collection). Sonically, this live album does not differ much from previous it is a high quality mix with crisp sounding guitars and vocals (and likely an overdub or two). The setlist is an effective blend of all eras each album is represented by at least one track, and most containing at least three entries.

Sadly, there are no real surprises "Dante's Inferno" remains the only 'Burnt Offerings' inclusion, and 'Something Wicked' has a disappointing representation of mostly ballads ("Melancholy" and "Watching Over Me" are two of the three entries). And of course, 'Night of the Stormrider' and 'Dark Saga' contain their pre-requisite staples. These songs sound as effective and full of life as ever, with Stu Block delivering quality performances. He doesn't necessarily bring anything new to the proceedings, other than restoring Greely's powerful falsettos to the Stormrider tracks; nonetheless, he turns in a solid performance.

What elevates this live album are some of the other performances the 'Dystopia' songs work extremely well in a live context, with Stu Block actually improving on his studio performance on tracks like "Boiling Point" and "V". Surprisingly, the material from 'Framing Armageddon' (especially "Setian Massacre") are given new live with Block's vocals. While still far from their best material, the tracks actually contain presence for the first time that improve their standing in the setlist.

And then there's the 'Horror Show' material. Iced Earth were guilty of overproducing the hell out of the vocals on that album, using layer upon layer that made them difficult to reproduce live. Additionally, they were some of the most demanding tracks Barlow laid down, as they contained some of the rangiest material, with frequent octave jumps and notes around the breakpoint. Three of the best entries on the uneven studio effort are included here: "Wolf", "Dracula", and "Damien". Stu proves he is game on "Wolf", managing to convert the difficult two-part vocal melody into a solid one-part effort, with additional gusto on the demonic-sounding chorus. "Dracula" succeeds largely on the sweat and tears of Block; it's a song that works much better in the studio, but Stu's versatile octave-jumping manage to provide the song with the requisite amount of melodrama and delightful cheese that made the track engaging to begin with.

Only "Damien" fails of the three, but this is largely due to Schaffer's lazy songwriting. Barlow's over-the-top octave-doubled vocals carried the original and masked its weaknesses, but alas, Stu only has one set of vocal cords, which exposes the song's inherent mediocrity.

The recording definitely does a nice job of capturing the energy of the crowd, whose soccer-esque chants are infectious. Stu brings much charisma as a frontman, and clearly feeds off of the passionate crowd.

Ultimately, this new live release is far from essential (how many different versions of "Pure Evil" does one fan need?). But for fans, especially those (like me) who had given up on the band after 'Crucible of Man', the album is a stark reminder that Iced Earth is back...with newfound passion and excitement. And isn't metal better when Iced Earth are having fun?

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I've been a fan since I bought Horror Show back in 2001. I include myself in the majority group that think Matt Barlow will always be the voice of Iced Earth, but newcomer Stu Block is nothing short of spectacular here. He has the low and high range of Barlow, plus he can scream as high as the bands previous vocalist, Tim "Ripper" Owens. If you weren't totally sold on him after Dystopia (I think most were), this 2 1/2 hour live performance will make you a believer. The band is tight and the energy from the crowd is unlike any concert DVD/Blu-ray that I own.

This is a great buy for the price. You get 2 CDs and 1 DVD that capture the entire show, along with a few extras that show the making of this one of a kind concert that was filmed on some ancient stone ruins. The picture is near Blu-ray quality and the sound is loud and broken up nicely.

With founder/guitarist Jon Schaffer leading the way and Stu delivering the lyrics, Iced Earth should be cranking out nothing but classics in the near future. It's also refreshing to know that an American band is representing "Iron Maiden" style metal, when most of the better bands right now are from Europe. Looking forward to what they come up with next.

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