Iced Earth - The Dark Saga (1996)

Iced Earth's fourth album focuses on the comic book character "Spawn", in a battle against evil, and is somewhat more musically straightforward than previous efforts; there aren't any excessively long songs here (the concluding "A Question Of Heaven" is the longest, clocking in at just over seven minutes - it's also the best), and there's not a lot of speed either.
Iced Earth hasn't thrilled me so far, and this record doesn't either, but it's still quite good, and the dark lyrics are reasonable and add to the experience.

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