Blind Guardian
Beyond the Red Mirror

Germany’s Blind Guardian are heading down memory lane a little bit, reusing stories from the Imaginations From the Other Side album and reviewers mentions that it is also stylistically akin towards that album and that era. Perhaps the red mirror is reflecting those imaginations from the other side. Nice cover, not excessive and not that revealing in any regard. It is the tenth album by the band, and now they are mirroring the past with prophesies, waves, Twilights of the Gods and grand parades to end it all. It seems to be a complete album in the content regard and the label states that there is one fact that it all you need to know and that is the fact that the album holds no compromises, not one. That sounds like a strange thing to me, I doubt that an album is even doable without compromising, unless you are a one man band and does everything yourself and most of those really sucks – I believe you need to compromise to achieve something. But does that mean that this new album is a pompous piece of self-delusions?

Well, not really. The fans of this band will recognise their heroes as their new album is created in the same vein as their prior works, maybe akin a bit backwards towards their 1995 effort Imaginations From the Other Side. Bombastic power metal with symphonic elements, with choirs and with Hansi Kürsch on vocals, and Hansi is in his usual form sounding terrible as usual. The production is excellent and the soundscape is to die for, the variation the common Blind Guardian variation and the playing time is 66 minutes which to my ears is a tad on the long side. Good power and atmosphere on this album, they sure have a flair for the dramatic in their music and they even manage to make music with Hansi Kürsch singing sound good. This is surely a quality production.

I think that this is a good album, I may not be a fans of Hani Kürsch but that doesn’t detract from the fact that Blind Guardian keeps doing fascinating albums but they also keeps doing very similar albums and to me not much has changed since that previously mentioned 1995 effort Imaginations From the Other Side. Sure they have improved productions and song structures and their arrangements since then but they still do very similar albums and I grew pretty tired of their music a long time ago and this album does nothing to change that as it is more or less the same thing as before. A typical Blind Guardian album, well made, good songs, bombastic sound and excellent production along with Hansi Kürsch – a solid effort it clearly is and fans of the band will adore this just as they do with all the band’s previous albums.

I think Prophesies is a great song, the rest of the songs are pretty good but none of them are as good as the one mentioned. I think it is an album that the fans of the band will enjoy, it is solid and the songs are good – hell, the album is good and even Hansi sounds quite alright and that in itself is worth commending. Still, I doubt that too many will really find this too exciting as we have heard it all before and repeating stuff indefinitely just isn’t exciting and to me this is just another Blind Guardian album – it is like you know what you are going to get and to some that is probably enough. For me however, I like novelty and this has none of that so I doubt it is an album that I will return to now that I am finished with it.

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