Review by Felix on December 16, 2023.

Eight full-lengths in 17 years, this performance speaks in favor of the creative capacity of a band. Sad, that much is certain, were never lazy. I admit that I lost track of them over the years, but now, for reasons unknown to me, I decided to listen to their new work. And what can I say? Black Metal Craft is nothing less than a very late highlight of 2023. It does not take long to realize that the Greek mini-horde (consisting of two members, multi-instrumentalist Ungod and vocalist Nadir) does not lack courage, misanthropy and spirit. To a certain extent, the album pays tribute to the Norwegian role models of the mid-nineties, but the guys are no copycats. Their riffs, lines and (rare) melodies do not suffer from a stale taste. Everything sounds fresh and icy, malignant and non-commercial. Black Metal Craft is imported directly from the underground. And this has always been, is and will forever be the best biotope for real metal.

Eight songs fill the eighth album of Sad. All of them boast a remarkably good flow, non-conventional yet easily consumable patterns and a very well selected degree of velocity. Of course, the tempo is changing due to a proper number of breaks. Thus, we get a very dynamic album which erases boredom right from the start. The guitar lines are consistently at least good and occasionally absolutely fantastic, for example the lurking one of 'The Fortune Teller' which sets in at 3:50. But 'Catacombs Of Thoughts' (great title) also holds thrilling lines, for instance at the beginning, and 'Sickening Euphoria' does not stand in the shadows of its neighbors in view of its exciting, flickering ending. The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that I could mention more or less nearly all tracks in this context. No doubt, Black Metal Craft is filled to the brim with eerie, captivating harmonies.

The vocals are neither unusual nor extravagant. But don’t think that I don’t like them. Nadir delivers an enthralling performance. Malignant and raw, his voice expresses exactly what a voice should always convey when it comes to black metal: hostility, denial and negativity. By the way, the album also scores with a pretty perfect mixture of instrumental and non-instrumental sections. Already the opening title track (ingenious flow, compressed solo) shows that Sad has no problems constructing a song very coherently and the alarming guitar that crushes in at 4:14 works as a welcome special effect. Speaking of such effects, the production does not offer them. But firstly, it is less rumbling than the one of 'Misty Breath Of Ancient Forests' and secondly, here the same applies as with the voice. This is a generic yet definitely good mix for an album that does not want to be anything else but a worthy representative of the style its spiritual fathers have chosen. Black Metal Craft is – and this is a big surprise in view of its title – nothing else but black metal (at this point you must imagine a diabolic laughter). Mission accomplished; here we have another album that breathes the sulphurous stench of its genre every minute. That’s fantastic, even though a small number of sections leave a little room for optimization, especially the first half of the closer / overlong outro 'Winds of Grief', an instrumental. Either way, Black Metal Craft has convinced me to check some items of the Greek’s back catalog in 2024.

Rating: 8.4 out of 10

Review by Chad on January 24, 2020.

For as beloved and revered Iced Earth have been for always being one of the few bands one can rely on to bring take the torch from bands Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, the latter of which they were so inspired by to have even originally named their band after the song "Purgatory", Iced Earth have never been the most graceful band out there. I remember when these guys preened themselves online back in the old Myspace days, making themselves look as stupid as the other big American power metal band, Manowar. What is it with American power metal and labeling oneself as "true metal" while putting down everyone else? Well, they're confident, but are they any good? Nah, no Iced Earth pretty well suck both inside and out. Forget about the incompetent singer Gene Adam, these guys flat out sucked back in the day for lack of professionalism (which has proven to be an ongoing problem), poor production, and the inability to write a halfway decent song that didn't either make use of Iron Maiden style triplets to the point of redundancy or add in these pretentious slower, spoken word sections that aren't very musical and don't contribute anything other than to pad out the album's length. On second thought none of these problems would be exclusive to the band's debut, but for as inspired as they were by some of the most legendary acts there are, one would think that they might have incorporated a few more ideas from said bands for their debut album, and considering the band had been alive and well for a full five years before the release of their self-titled debut, I find it hard to give them any benefit of a doubt that maybe Iced Earth was just a rush job.

Instead of realizing how the entire band sucked on a holistic front, they blamed it on the mediocre singer, firing him and replacing him. They even went a step beyond and re-recorded this very album with Matt Barlow later on. I realize Gene Adam sounds like some kind of fictional, sub-human creature... a high-pitched Smeagol from Lord of the Rings comes to mind, but come on, he's not repulsively bad to the point that the original album becomes hard to listen to. No, the production quality is fully capable of doing that on its own. I know drummer Mike McGill has a ride cymbal, surely he has one, right... right? Okay, maybe I'm not so sure, but one thing I do know is those guitars leave a lot to be desired both in terms of tonality and the compositions themselves. Jon Schaffer has a triplet happy right hand. It doesn't matter if he's playing rhythm of leads, he will proceed to annoy me with his superfluous use of them and leave me wondering if he's recycling riffs or whether he's really just that two-dimensional as an artist. Tonally, this stuff is pretty dull and flat, with the snare having more reverb to it than anything else on the album. The worst case is on "Life and Death" which opens up with this ugly, tinny, shrill clean guitar that pierces your eardrums and sounds like it was made by someone who just started learning to play the instrument.

The wretched slow moments are by far the worst part of Iced Earth. During these sections our interesting as mud singer takes the liberty to rap to us all about how a slow section ought to be done, in the form of spoken word! Oh! Ah! Gene, what other tricks do you have up your sleeve, you wizard you? Gregorian chant? Mongolian throat singing? Not quite, although they'd most likely be equally as boring in their delivery, but we do get some rather odd vocal synthesizer effects on "Life and Death", probably because he couldn't come up with a vocal melody to make the chorus interesting and they decided to use this effect to mask the fact that he couldn't get a clue. This album opens up with two songs back to back that incorporate slow, spoken word sections and it really drains the life out of whatever the album might have going for it thereafter. Those who continue to trek the snowy wastelands will find very few redeeming qualities to the album beyond "Curse the Sky" as later songs such as the overly long "When the Night Falls" and "The Funeral" suffer from the exact same problems. A throwaway instrumental that leaves little to the imagination further lulls as it becomes clear that even when there's no vocalist whatsoever, the band are adamant on writing fluff, "The Funeral" isn't exactly an instrumental, but might as well be as the vocal duties are spread thin, meanwhile the song plays out as if it was supposed to have a vocalist. That is to say that it's repetitive and doesn't move around a whole lot to the point that it would've been difficult to sing to.

"When the Night Falls" has its moments, this one actually sounds like something that could've been inspired by Iron Maiden. There's actual melodies and motifs are played on. The triplet riffs are still overbearingly stupid, forced and auto-pilot by this point, but there's some nice intercessions that make it feel some thought was put into it. All in all, Iced Earth may be known for being a power metal band, but to my ears this sounds like wimpy 90's thrash metal that misses the mark entirely. I remember when Iced Earth were calling bands of the 90's and mid 00's posers, I have to say from what I've heard of the band, they were doing nothing but deflecting their own insecurities.

Highlight:
'Curse the Sky'

Rating: 5.1 out of 10