Review by MartinDavey87 for Iced Earth - Tribute to the Gods (2004)

Covers albums. Love them or hate them, there’s just always something about them that sticks out like a sore thumb in a bands discography, whether they’re good or bad, they just “stand out”. Y’know? Some bands are great at covers, though. Metallica comes to mind. Maybe it’s because most of the songs they cover are obscure bands that nobody would have heard of otherwise, but they have a knack for basically taking a song and completely making it their own.

Then there’s Iced Earth. Theirs are not so good.

‘Tribute to the Gods’ is Iced Earth’s attempt at paying homage to the bands that inspired them. It was originally released in 2001 as part of the ‘Dark Genesis’ box set, but has since been released a number of times by itself. Not that that makes it any better or anything... just saying...

The thing is, Iced Earth just don’t really have the right sound that lends itself well to covers. I mean, they’ve kept their own guitar tones, Matt Barlow can sing really well, but none of it works well when comparing thrash-inspired power metal to hard rock like AC/DC or Blue Oyster Cult. Also, in all honesty, I find the choices of songs mostly lacklustre.

At best however, their cover of KISS’s ‘Creatures of the Night’ is pretty damn good, as is their Iron Maiden covers ‘The Number of the Beast’ and ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’, but honestly, they’re not really good enough to make me choose to listen to them of my own free will, and if anything it’s a simple case of the originals being better.

Never mind though, it’s a covers album, never really something to take too seriously in the first place. I originally got this with the aforementioned ‘Dark Genesis’ box set, so it wasn’t like I splashed out particularly on this release, which is good, because if I had I’d probably feel slightly perturbed right about now.