The Glorious Burden is the seventh studio album by the American power metal band Iced Earth. It is a concept album, which explores various moments in military history, such as the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolutionary War, and Waterloo. It also pays tribute to world events such as World War I, the World Trade Center attacks and the ravages of Attila the Hun. The album includes a trilogy entitled Gettysburg. Each of the three songs represents one day in the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest battle ever conducted in the Western Hemisphere and considered the turning point in the American Civil War. This album features the debut of lead singer Tim "Ripper" Owens, formerly of Judas Priest. Owens, who at that time was still in Judas Priest, was asked to do the vocals as a side project. However, he joined the band full-time after Judas Priest reunited with Rob Halford. The album was first recorded with Matt Barlow on vocals, but band leader Jon Schaffer was not satisfied with his performance. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glo...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)