Troy Seele

Troy Seele — born in the United States in 1969 — was Iced Earth's guitarist between 2007 and 2016, a period in which he crossed two changes of singer. He joined in the phase of Framing Armageddon (2007) and The Crucible of Man (2008), the two volumes that concluded the concept saga begun in 1998, and stayed through Matt Barlow's return and Stu Block's arrival, also recording Dystopia (2011) and Plagues of Babylon (2014). His function is to provide the melodic counterpoint to Jon Schaffer's vocabulary. Iced Earth rests on galloping riffs of fast, repetitive picking, played by Schaffer himself; the second guitarist is responsible for the solos and the lines that interrupt that repetition, giving the tracks variation and a point of contrast. It is work of fitting in: the interventions have to work inside a structure already defined before the soloist enters, without altering the mechanical character the band deliberately cultivates.