ICED EARTH s/t CD (CENTURY MEDIA) #BLASTITUDERECORDOFTHEDAY #HEAVYMUSICINHEAVYSTYLESANDVOLUMES

The legend continues to grow of the Tampa, Florida death metal explosion in the late 80s/early 90s. I myself only recently learned that the bands would practice in (and around) the same outdoor storage units where they kept their equipment, after being pointed to this footage of a 1990 MORBID ANGEL rehearsal:



This is an excellent short documentary from 1991, Florida: Thrash 'Til Death, that sheds even more light on the deal, as Iced Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer takes us on a drive into and through the legendary facility, where he says 26 (!!!) different bands currently rent space (his interview starts around 3:54 and includes a killer Iced Earth performance video):



Hadn't heard of ICED EARTH before watching Thrash 'Til Death, maybe because they're not actually death metal, but a really satisfying power metal band with their feet more in vintage early-80s sounds rather than the death metal that was blowing up in the latter half of the decade. Just great riffs, perfect power metal rhythms, and the vocals by Gene Adam are plenty melodic, with a lot of pure singing, but also using well-placed 'evil goblin' tones on the verses. This is their self-titled 1990 debut album: