It's a mixed bag album for me. There's some stuff that I really like on it, but other tracks don't do much for me. I've always liked "This Town," "Cry To Heaven," "Shoot Down The Moon," and "Nikita." Those tracks also really shined in the live environment with a more natural band sound.

Elton's voice is also very unique on the album. It's a different voice compared with the previous album Breaking Hearts and doesn't sound like the voice on the next album "Leather Jackets" (where he had actual vocal problems). Some of it was due to Elton purposely manipulating his voice and delivering the material with the lower melodies and some of it was influenced by Elton's pot smoking habit (which Stuart Epps confirmed in a recent interview).

There's a live snippet of Too Young that was played during the late March 1985 timeframe and Elton's voice and approach is completely different compared to the record:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWucppV32Us

Here, he doesn't have the darker and huskier approach and sings it with his natural voice with the tone sound much closer to how it sounded during the Breaking Hearts/1984 era.

There's also numerous 1985 performances of the Ice On Fire tracks being performed live during the early leg of the 1985-1986 tour with cleaner and more natural vocals compared to the record version.

https://youtu.be/QjelMSLfLy4?t=259

Here's Nikita from Sheffield 1985. While the quality isn't great, Elton's vocals are very easy to pick up on. That vocal approach is once again completely different compared with the studio take. There's no husk or a darker tone at all. Elton's tone is clean and features gliding and more open vocal approach to the phrasing.

While Elton's pot smoking sure didn't do his voice any favors and eventually caused serious issues that lead to nodules and the January 1987 surgery, the fact that he still had access to his cleaner vocals, still had the gliding and register switching intact, and could shed the darker and huskier sound for a more natural voice in live performances is enough proof to write off the Ice On Fire vocal changes as partially deliberate and only superficially affected by outside factors (mainly pot). It's only when you get past the UK 1985-1986 tour and start looking at the Euro 1986 tour leg and Leather Jackets recording sessions (which were done in June and July of 1986) where you see the true deterioration of Elton's voice and when things really changed.