The year was 1990. A fresh wave of long-haired misfits reached for their guitars... And metal burst forth, ancient Marshall combos sputtered to life, driving the inhabitants of the neighboring punk garage to madness... And how much more was yet to be endured -- Tom Morris's endless swearing, 12 days of nonstop laughter at each other, the tribunal over the vocalist who, instead of singing, conjured otherworldly arias worthy of the Canterville Ghost... What can you say -- debut albums are always born in sweet agony and inevitably inherit a piece of the haphazard conception process.
So what do we have? Atmo-thrash plus nuclear speed metal. The latter has always been an imported product for the American continent, which is why even the Helloween-esque bits that, with some effort, can be fished out of the murky soup of "ICED EARTH" don't feel entirely ripped off from start to finish. It's more like what we're witnessing is an example of CREATIVE REINTERPRETATION (much like Volkov "reinterpreted" Frank Baum) of works by European maestros. And besides, who was always the godfather in the lands of the Indians? That's right -- SLAYER. So they weren't forgotten either. Also reinterpreted.
The resulting mutant turned out quite decent, even if it didn't become a sensation. Jon Schaffer and Co. weren't exactly swimming in diversity back in those days. But the first stone was dropped. "A city shall be founded here!" they declared. And off they went to Europe, building the ships of their burgeoning popularity...