I love heavy metal. I also love comic books. Yet, in this case, I didn’t buy the album because of the comic; much the opposite, I was intrigued by the comic (Todd McFarlane’s “Spawn”), and bought most of it, because of this album.
1996’s “The Dark Saga”, may or may not be Iced Earth’s best album, but, to me, it’s the most emotional one. They take a comic book which, while good, has its ups and downs, and interpret it in their own way, re-telling parts of the story with music, creating images from sound. If you know the comic, you won’t be able to avoid remembering it, seeing it in your mind, as you listen to this album.
“Spawn” is, basically, the story of a man who dies, and makes a deal with the devil to come back, because he love his wife so much. In return, the devil would have his soul for eternity. The devil accepted… but made him come back not just after his death, but 5 years later. A time when his wife had moved on, and was happy, and married to his own best friend. Not only that, but he didn’t come back in his body, but in a demonic one. Powerful… but also quite inhuman (that’s him, in the album cover, shown above), and scary.
The album begins with “Dark Saga”, an introductionto the story., It then moves through the sadness and profound sense of loss in “I Died For You”, to the brutality of “Violate”… Going through “The Hunter”, about a female angel who came to hunt Spawn, to “Vengeance is Mine”, where Spawn, for the first time, is able to do some good, and put a well-deserved end to a child killer…
A ghoul of blackened torment, sullen atrocity
A kindred soul to the devils own, malignance personified
Cast from his fire he molests the purest light
Profane to humanity menaced by flesh and bone
Screams of the unknown youth to him the sweetest tone
Undying in his will to kill his bloodlust is profound
For the blood of the lamb I’ve got to bring him down
… it then ends in “A Question of Heaven”, probably still my favorite Iced Earth song:
All for the love of my life
I know it’s sad but true
Something is very wrong
Condemned to suffer so long
For a love so true
The question that lies within
Is so hard to understand
It still tears at me
And in my dying breath
My heart holds no regrets
I wouldn’t change a thing
My spirit begins to rise into the heavenly skies
Just to be shunned away by you
Now all I want is to die, no streets of gold in the sky
And I wash my hands of you
Related posts:
Subscribe to this blog
Awesome album indeed, its such a shame Barlow is no longer Iced Earth vocals… Let’s hope the new album will be at least half as good as their previous stuff without Barlow. Btw I’m also thinking of that album to check out Spawn comics.