Band:	Iced Earth
Album:	Plagues Of Babylon
Style:	Heavy metal, US power metal
Release date:	January 06, 2014
Guest review by:	tominator

01. Plagues Of Babylon
02. Democide
03. The Culling
04. Among The Living Dead
05. Resistance
06. The End?
07. If I Could See You
08. Cthulhu
09. Peacemaker
10. Parasite
11. Spirit Of The Times [Sons Of Liberty cover]
12. Highwayman [Jimmy Webb cover]
13. Outro

Let me start this review by saying that I really like this album. I even prefer it over Dystopia, which is pretty good album in my opinion.

Now there are some good and bad things on Plagues Of Babylon.

First the good stuff.
- The riffs are very good overall.
- The vocals of Stu are excellent in this album. He manages to combine pure heavy metal singing with a bit of his former experience as the frontman of Into Eternity. I think the balance is just right on the album, while I sometimes didn't feel that way with Dystopia.
- The production quality is excellent. The drums sound powerful without overruling the riffs or the vocals, the riffs and bass lines get the attention they deserve on this record, and the vocals are mixed in really well.
- There are multiple songs on this record with good lyrics; songs like "Plagues Of Babylon", "Parasite", "The End?", etc. are really well-written in terms of lyrics.

But what about the bad stuff?
- Some of the riffs and overall ideas that are put into certain songs feel like they are a bit generic. As an example: the drumming on "The Culling" is amazing but I wish I could say the same about the riffs in that song, which is unfortunately not the case, I'm afraid. It still is a fun song to listen to, but mostly because of that drumming.
- The lyrics on some songs feel a bit too cheesy for an Iced Earth record. Songs like "Peacemaker" and "Spirit Of The Times" are a fine example of that.

For me, the three best songs are "Parasite", "The End?", and "Resistance" (the riff in the middle of the song is among the best you'll find on the album). The three weakest parts are, in my opinion, "Peacemaker" (too cheesy), "Spirit Of The Times" (same problem as "Peacemaker"), and "Outro" (not really a song, I know, but this is something that kind of bothered me - it's completely unnecessary to put this on the record).

Overall I think this album is definitely worth a listen. One of the strongest things about this album is the vocals. It's an interesting mix of different styles of singing into one record, something which I can really appreciate.