### Pyramaze: Immortal

#### 27/05/08 || Euthanatos

Let’s face it, you were as anxious for Matt Barlow returning to Iced Earth as I was. There’s no shame on it. There’s nothing wrong with being gay. Come on, guys, we just have to embrace our feminine side. Right?

Anyway, what actually started the whole Barlow debacle was the announcement that he was coming back to music, and most importantly, to metal, singing for the not-so-well known Danish band Pyramaze. Personally, I didn’t know such a band existed. So, like everyone else did, I downloaded the samples when they were available, thought they were kinda cool and guessed “hey, this should be promising”.

Now I have the album “Immortal”, the first recorded material from Barlow in God knows how many years. What’s it like, you wonder. Well, it’s kinda average, to be totally honest, but it’s not as shitty as what Iced Earth has been putting out, I’ll tell you that.

After your usual (yeap, you guessed it) introduction, “Year of the Phoenix” kicks in. It’s a good track, your typical power metal, even sounds like something that could be featured in an Iced Earth record. Good chorus and it’s very relieving to hear that Barlow hasn’t lost his touch at all. He sounds as good as he did ten years ago. Glad we dodged that bullet there.

“Ghost Light” starts out fine, but has some really gay keyboards fucking it all up before there’s even any singing, and that fucking annoying keyboard player keeps pissing me off through most of the track. Some nice guitar duets, though. And apart from the keyboards, the track is pretty heavy.

Have I mentioned how ridiculous the name Pyramaze is? In case I haven’t, let me just take the time to do that now. What a fucking stupid name. Thank you. Moving on.

As I get to “Touched by the Mara”, I suddenly realize that this album is pretty good, it would be average normally, but Matthew’s vocals are so damn good, are so fucking on key, and badass, and killer, that this takes the album to a whole other level. There’s no other way of saying it, Barlow put the band on the map and he’s the reason the album is interesting.

I don’t mean to be a dick, though, the songwriting is decent. Everyone in the band plays their instrument adequately, above average, except for the keyboard player who is a flaming homo and should be shot.

“A Beautiful Death”, “Legacy in a Rhyme”, all good, power metal riffs, hey, Matt’s singing is really good on this album, “Caramon’s Poem”, “The Highland”, power metal, double bass, hey, Matt’s vocals are amazing in “Legacy in a Rhyme” and look, it’s a keyboard and vocals only song and the keyboard player doesn’t fuck it all up, now I’ve seen elephants fly.

Well, you get the point, right? This actually gives me hope for the future of Iced Earth, because even if Jon Schaffer has lost all of his super powers and keeps releasing dog shit in CD format, Barlow proves that he can make sub par material sound awesome. God bless that red headed man. I do like the song “The Highland”, though. It’s pretty. Yes, I just said a song was pretty. I think that’s enough for the day.

The cover: It’s a wizard or something like that, a power metal landscape and a phoenix. Yeah, power metal, Rhapsody in flames, all that jazz.

7 Iced Earth mentions out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2008
- Label: Locomotive Music
- Website: www.pyramaze.com
- Band
- Matt Barlow: vocals
- Michael Kammeyer: guitars
- Morten Gade Sørensen: drums
- Jonah Weingarten: keyboards
- Niels Kvist: bass
- Toke Skjønnemand: guitars

- Tracklist
- 01. Arise
- 02. Year of the Phoenix
- 03. Ghost Light
- 04. Touched by the Mara
- 05. A Beautiful Death
- 06. Legacy in a Rhyme
- 07. Caramon’s Poem
- 08. The Highland
- 09. Shadow of the Beast
- 10. March Through an Endless Rain