The following message has been posted at the German ICED EARTH fan site, Iced Realm (www.icedrealm.de), by webmaster Tobi:

“So, as some of you may already have heard, this site will be shut down shortly.

For a long time, this board was the main reason that kept this site online - I liked it too much to just shut it down. However, during the past months, it changed quite drastically. Combined with other personal reasons, I now decided that the time has come for the board and the site to go. I'll explain some of these reasons a bit more in-depth now.

1) The general atmosphere on this board:

This board always was a place full of intelligent discussions and nice people. Certain members decided that they wanted to show off how cool they were by being rude to newbies, oldies and everybody else- except a few chosen friends. I haven't read a single thread in the Iced Earth forum in past months that didn't degenerate to yet another thread full of bashing and sharing of stupid insider jokes that weren't even funny the second time around.

The logical result of all this was that a lot of the oldies posted less and less, or stopped posting altogether - which turned out to be a vicious circle, as the oldies were replaced by even more new people - who couldn't wait to piss in the shoes left behind by the oldies.

With everybody being sarcastic to the extreme, to noobs and oldies alike, and hardly any serious discussion that was actually worth reading, this is just not the board I want it to be anymore. It was awesome while it lasted, but the board as I liked it stopped existing months ago.

2) Money:

To put it short: I'm a student now, and running this site and board costs me 6€ a month and another 15€ a year for the domain name. It adds up to 87€ a year (don't know the exchange rate right now but, it's certainly way over $100) - money that I simply don't have any more, and that is better invested in books, fees and train fares.

3) Iced Earth:

They aren't even close to being my favorite band anymore. I still love the first three albums, obviously, and still like the three albums that followed, but that's it. I don't remember the last time I listened to an Iced Earth album all the way through.

The Iced Earth I loved doesn't exist anymore. Without Matt's voice, they just aren't the same. I don't know whether he would've been able to save The Glorious Burden, but Tim most certainly couldn't. The new Demons & Wizards album, on closer inspection, proved to be more of the same as well. Nowadays there are about 2 1/2 songs on there I can actually listen to all the way through. Schaffer, let's face it, has lost it. I don't even wanna know how the Something Wicked concept albums will sound.

As I mentioned earlier, the boards were the only reason the site still exists...so now the site and the boards will go together. It simply doesn't make sense for me to continue running an Iced Earth site, when all I can do upon reading a new interview with Jon is laugh at his endless repetitions of how the next album will be the most killerest thing ever and that he slept in abandoned houses when he was 16.

The time has come for someone else to run an Iced Earth fanpage, someone who still is dedicated to the band the same way that I once was.

So, there you have it.

I've cancelled the contract with my provider, unless they forget to put it offline this site will be history by the end of November.

I hope to see some of you again on other forums, though some of you, I hope to never see again.

Thanks for 2 great years and a couple of not so great at all months after that.

See you round,

Tobi.”