ICED EARTH – Gettysburg DVD

What the hell happened with ICED EARTH? With the last album The Glorious Burden the Americans around Jon Schaffer were not able to satisfy concerning music and lyrics. One reason for me was that the brilliant singer Matthew Barlow left the band. The music did not reach the musical class and freshness of former CDs. Well, new vocalist Tim 'Ripper' Owens, formerly Judas Priest as we all know, was not able to do such a great job as Matthew who `deserted` to the police.
The epic Gettysburg is presented on this DVD in costly sound features, unfortunately the video only consists of scenes of the Gettysburg war (often historic characters), which is not very suspenseful – this could have done much better of course.
There are also some specials offered on this double optical-acoustical part time slowpoke: Mr Schaffer, accompanied by a battlefield guide, leads us to the historic battleground (much too long); a photo gallery (not necessarily outstanding); videos (When The Eagle Cries with discussible lyrics and The Reckoning); two different sound mixes (metal and orchestral) and in the end an interview with Jon.
The volume of the DVD is okay, but I really dislike the lengthiness and exaggerated patriotism of the band. It could be interesting seen from a historic point of view, but I can’t handle this patriotism and so my mood is beclouded considerably while watching Gettysburg and let’s me think of the past, when ICED EARTH seemed to set main focus on composing good and dramatic songs than dealing with history…well, not my cup of tea.