CD Odyssey Disc 1822: Blind Guardian

Two Blind Guardian reviews in three records is probably one too many, but I review what I randomly roll, and Blind Guardian came up again. Maybe it will help if I tell you know it’s even better than the last one…?

Disc 1822 is…Follow the Blind

Artist: Blind Guardian

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover? This wizard and hobbit do not look like a match for the Wraith King Dude waiting for them out on that cliff. Something tells me a staff and whatever is in that bag the dude in front is clutching is not going to get the job done. Just close the door and go back to the tavern, boys…

How I Came To Know It: Just me deep-diving through Blind Guardian.

How It Stacks Up: I have five Blind Guardian albums. Of the five, I had reserved spot #3 for “Follow the Blind” but this record pleasantly surprised me, and ended up dethroning “Nightfall in Middle Earth” for top spot.

Ratings: 4 stars

Did you find those two mid-nineties reviews I wrote about Blind Guardian a bit too nerdy? A bit too concept-driven? Enter, “Follow the Blind,” which is heavier, more direct and all around chunkier. But don’t get too ahead of yourself. This is Blind Guardian, and there is plenty of kings and magic and adventure and Valhalla within. If you don’t like that stuff, you are listening to the wrong band. Please move along.

Still here? Excellent. You are in for Blind Guardian at the early end of their career. “Follow the Blind” is the band’s second record, where they infuse their brand of European power metal with less prog and more thrash. This record is a relentless attack that will make you want to drive fast and mosh violently. Please undertake these activities at separate times, however. Safety first.

While this album lacks the musical complexity of later concept records of the band, it features the same basic style elements. Singer Hansi Kursch is doing what he will do throughout his career – singing with a fast-paced phrasing that would leave a lesser vocalist breathless, but just makes him sound…excited. Andre Olbrich’s guitar is still technical and thoughtful in its approach to riffs and solos alike without ever feeling “fast for fast’s sake”.

While these two are always a joy, it is drummer Thomen Stauch that caught my attention on “Follow the Blind”. Stauch would leave the band in 2005, but he’s there for the golden age of Blind Guardian, and his drumming on “Follow the Blind” is the perfect blend of aggression and precision. His double bass work is killer, and he can snap that snare in a way that sounds like it’s left a welt.

The title track is the best song on the record, and even though it is over seven minutes long, I never get tired of its extra helping of crunch. The riffs owe something to early Metallica, but not in a way that feels derivative. Here we get the joy of rhythm guitarist Marcus Siepen, holding everything down with immaculate timing and plenty of growl.

Following on that song’s heels is “Hall of the King” and this one-two punch is the record’s finest section. This song shows off the band’s power metal roots, with plenty of virtuosity and a restless inability to settle down into a simple verse/chorus/verse situation. Instead, the band careens from one melodic concept to another at breakneck speed. It is fast to the point of dangerous, but never out of control.

The record isn’t perfect, and I found the cover of the Demon song “Don’t Break the Circle” not great. I admit I don’t know the original, but this cover did not make me want to seek it out either.

Better was the band’s cover of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann”. You might expect Blind Guardian to really get in and deliberately mangle such a tune, but they play it straight. Powerful and with vigour yes, but you can see they genuinely love the source material. I found it a playful end to the record that let you know that despite all the earnestness and technical wizardry, these guys also know rock and roll should be fun.

My copy of the CD was the 2007 reissue featuring four bonus tracks. I don’t usually cotton to such excess, but these tunes were all solid and held their own against the originals. If I had to choose, I’d prefer just the original record on its own, but it wasn’t terrible having four more good songs to enjoy.

In the end I was left excited for my next Blind Guardian review. Not too soon though, boys; two out of three is plenty for now.

Best tracks: Banish from Sanctuary, Follow the Blind, Hall of the King

CD Odyssey Disc 1820: Blind Guardian

My long love affair with heavy metal is in full rebirth the last few years, as I discover new bands, new sub-genres and new bands. Here’s the second review of a band that has been around a while but is relatively new to me.

Disc 1820 is…Nightfall in Middle Earth

Artist: Blind Guardian

Year of Release: 1998

What’s up with the Cover? A scene from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Ballad of Beren and Luthien. Here we have a depiction of Luthien Tinuviel dancing before the evil Morgoth (who decided to wear his “Galactus” outfit for the event).

I’m not sure why Luthien is depicted as glowing blue; if that happens in the story I don’t remember it. The dancing bit and Luthien being super hot? Yes, that checks out.

Morgoth’s crown has three glowing jewels, which are the Silmarils. If you know what these are, cool. If you don’t, in this story they’re the stakes in a high-stakes wager between Beren and Luthien’s dad, the elven King Thingol. They also serve as the MacGuffin.

If any of this high adventure fantasy talk gets your juices flowing, then the music on this record could be for you. Based on this cover, what gets Morgoth’s juices flowing is Luthien Tinuviel’s dancing but as is often the case, he’s going to feel sleepy after…

How I Came To Know It: A while back I went on a journey seeking music inspired by Lord of the Rings. One of the best outcomes was my discovery of the German band, Blind Guardian. These guys love them some LOTR, and “Nightfall in Middle Earth” is ground zero for that love.

How It Stacks Up: I currently have five Blind Guardian albums, and I’m on the lookout for five more. Of the five I already have, I’m going to put “Nightfall in Middle Earth” in at #1.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

On each listen I appreciated “Nightfall in Middle Earth” a little more, but this record does not make itself easy to love. You have to scrape through a lot of bloat and excess to get to the good stuff at the centre.

“Nightfall in Middle Earth” is Blind Guardian’s love letter to J.R.R.Tolkien, and in particular to his book, “The Silmarillion”. “The Silmarillion” is one of my favourite books of all time (I’ve read it five times and will be reading it again soon) making the subject matter of this album easy to enjoy.

Also easy to enjoy is the exceptional musicianship and song structure on display here. “Nightfall in Middle Earth” is a master class in how to do power metal right. It is symphonic, bombastic, but always with an element of crunch and gravitas that metal needs to be, you know, metal.

Things get off on the right foot early with “Into the Storm,” a song featuring some Grade A guitar work from Andre Olbrich (who also writes all the music for the record). The song’s structure also evokes folk music sensibilities, including some unison singing suitable for long walks with a sword belted on your waist, and maybe later for swinging a tankard of ale at the local tavern.

“Nightfall” and follows with some guitar work that would be just as enjoyable on a mandolin or hurdy-gurdy. Here Blind Guardian go perhaps one step too far into nerd-dom, however. “Into the Storm” is adventuring with your friends in the woods. “Nightfall” is awkwardly riding the city bus in costume on your way to the Ren Fair.

The album also features a healthy dollop of classical music composition as well, with Blind Guardian showing creativity in the arrangements and the penchant for building multiple movements into the longer songs.

Th best of the bunch is “The Curse of Feanor.” It helps that Feanor is one of my favourite characters in the Silmarillion, and hearing someone sing of how ‘fey with wrath’ he is in the first person is delightful fanboy fun. The tune itself shows Olbrich’s compositional talent, and they are some of the stronger lyrics on the record (all written by lead singer Hansi Kursch.

That said, this record has some problems. One is that the lyrics are very uneven. Written for serious fans, the band doesn’t make it easy to follow along if you don’t know the subject matter very well, and even if you do I question some of Kursch’s narrative choices. Olbrich’s music achieves the heroic tone of the book much more consistently than Kursch’s words.

The other challenge with this record is it is seriously bloated. The original recording has 22 individual tracks, and while nine of those are little snippets of music or dialogue each under a minute long, that doesn’t make it better, it makes it worse. The musical interludes do not add to the album’s listening enjoyment, and the dialogue bits are clunky and read like a Dungeons and Dragons session; fun when you’re playing but not something other people want to listen to later.

I’ll always be eternally grateful that Blind Guardian took the time to set one of my dearest literary experiences to music. Despite some clunky moments, the good parts are truly great but despite my pro-Silmarillion bias I could not give this record four stars. If the band had just left all those snippets and short bits on the editing room floor and went with a 12 song (but still 60 minutes long) record, they’d have gotten there.

Best tracks: Into the Storm, The Curse of Feanor, Blood Tears, When Sorrow Sang

CD Odyssey Disc 1763: Blind Guardian

After a late night that started early I slept in today and awoke refreshed and ready to take on the world. Having taken on said world (I went for brunch) I’m now back and ready to provide you some musical exploration.

Disc 1763 is…Imaginations from the Other Side

Artist: Blind Guardian

Year of Release: 1995

What’s up with the Cover? Holy shit – what isn’t up with the cover? We have a mystical portal, presumably leading to the mysterious but rather vague universe known as “The Other Side”. The portal is held open by the mystical energies of a magical lute crackling with energy, and guarded by a trio of miniature dragons. The two on the bottom look like they’re snapping at each other, but I think it’s just foreplay.

Speaking of miniatures, the portal is guarded by a couple of statutes. One of a heavy metal wizard playing the aforementioned lute, and the other some faceless wraith or tattered king type.

Not enough awesome for you? Let’s throw in a book, and a quill and ink, practically screaming at you that you are about to be treated to a bunch of fanciful stories.

Neat.

How I Came To Know It: A month or two ago I was exploring the interwebs looking for bands that liked to sing about Lord of the Rings. This began innocently enough, when I bought an album by the band Summoning called “Minus Morgul” (coincidentally also released in 1995) and thought “how much of this kind of stuff is out there?”

Turns out, quite a lot. The search led me down a Youtube hole where I tried out about 15 metal bands. Most didn’t stick, but the big win was Blind Guardian. The album that drew me in was (fittingly) “Nightfall in Middle Earth” but I bought it and “Imaginations from the Other Side” the same day and “Imaginations…” got rolled first. So here we are.

How It Stacks Up: I have three Blind Guardian albums and I’m on the lookout for seven more (yes, seven). Of the three I have so far, “Imaginations…” comes in at #2.

Ratings: 3 stars

“When I was your age, television was called books,” admonishes Peter Falk’s grandfather character in the Princess Bride before sharing a fantastical tale featuring “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles”. If this doesn’t sound too bad to you, and you like your heavy metal served up fast, furious and with a side of the theatrical then you are likely to enjoy “Imaginations from the Other Side”.

Musically, the record sounds like three-quarters European power metal, and one-quarter ancient folk ballad. This may not be for you, but there is no denying the energy they pour into the music.

The drums are relentless and snap with a crisp authoritative thwack throughout (kudos to drummer Thomen Stauch). Andre Olbrich’s guitar solos soar as you would expect from the genre, and vocalist Hansi Kursch has one of metal’s great voices. On the metal tunes, he flies over the mix like a dark angel, every word filled with dread import. On the folksier numbers he sounds like he’s singing around some medieval campfire, sharing some ancient folk tale passed down through the ages. I imagine his power could scare away hungry wolves in winter or – even better – invite them to join in with their haunting howl from somewhere deep in the snow-blanketed woods.

As for what they sing about, Blind Guardian are unashamedly in touch with their inner nerd. On “Imaginations…” they double down on all things fun and fantastical. This is a record with more literary and folklore references than you can shake a stick at, often tossed together randomly and rapid-fire on a single song. Here’s a fine example from the title track:

“Do you know
If Merlin did exist
Or Frodo wore the ring
Did Corum kill the gods
Or where’s the wonderland
Which young Alice had seen.”

That’s a lot of references, and if you didn’t catch them all then I suggest you read more. Blind Guardian certainly do, and the title track seems to be about how delightful it is to escape life’s drudgery in the pages of a book. Agreed.

However, as you can also surmise from that stanza, while Blind Guardian clearly have passion for their subject matter, the lyrics themselves aren’t terribly poetic or inspiring. The musicianship and themes of the record consistently outperforms the words that accompany them.

Nevertheless, the record grew on me over multiple listens, which is always a good sign. Once you surrender yourself to the barrage of sound and the ever-climbing anthemic song structure you are quickly hooked.

The record also has some impressive crunch. “The Script for My Requiem” is frantic and heavy in equal measure, crunching away at an impossible speed. The band is incredibly tight, and it feels like going fast in a performance car – breathtakingly thrilling but in total control, as it hugs every corner.

My copy of the album is a special edition CD set with the original record, as well as a remastered one that features a couple of bonus cover tracks. The original record has a bit more thump, and the remaster is a bit brighter with more separation of sound. I liked them both, but think the remaster benefited from the separation and highlighted the band’s strengths.

The two covers are awesome. The first is the Uriah Heap classic, “the Wizard” which I think I loved just as much as the original, and maybe more. The other one is a cover of Michael Schenker Group’s “System’s Failing” which I didn’t previously know, but quickly came to love as Blind Guardian shows off the bones of the original classic as well as their own unique sound.

Lots to recommend here and despite sometimes clunky lyrics, this record delivers a whole lot of awesome.

Best tracks:  I’m Alive, The Script for My Requiem, Born in a Mourning Hall and from the bonus tracks “the Wizard”