The early Iced Earth albums are good (don't listen to them often), more importantly by the 3rd album in 1995, there were very few bands standing that started in the 80's that could deliver like they did on "Burnt Offerings", this '92-'95 was a really bad period for almost every high profile metal band (we know there was good material coming out in the underground).
I have the most hilarious memory, during this time I was still in touch with my old college lab partner, metal was one of our main bonds through college. He was complaining that all the metal bands were gone, grunge had destroyed everything, around this time and nothing new to listen to. So I told him to get the first 3 Iced Earth albums, so he got them via mailorder. He was PISSED at me after he got them! He said "I hate death metal and how dare I recommend this shit to him!!" Nothing I could say would his mind....