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The wait of four long years is over, comrades. Sure, live material in both CD
and DVD form have been thrown to us hungry wolves to soothe us since the days
of A Night At The Opera, but admit it or not, what we all want is brand
new studio material from the one and the only Blind Guardian.
The album title gives impressions of considerable changes in the bands usual repertoire of grandiose metal blitzkrieg, folky interludes, stratospheric choirs and anthemic vocal sections. Such is not the case. The album is very easily distinguishable Guardian through and through. Fortunately the too-much-of-the-good-stuff-mammothdisease that plagued ANATO has been mostly cured. Especially the production – clear and crisp, mind you – is not crammed so full of every possible harmonizing note and layering guitar. The music breathes nicely and blasts with full coherent force. The album mixes several different styles and parts of BG’s past very well together. This Will Never End and The Edge (with considerably quirky Nintendo-like sound effects popping out here and there) are part of the heavier, aggressive tunes that harken slightly back to the bands early 90’s material. New drummer Frederik Ehmke seems to have all the potential to fill in the gargantuan boots left by Thomen Stauch. Give him a couple of albums and we will see if those fills and thundering rolls fall into place as well as with The Omen. Otherland and Lionheart are more in line with the later progressive and orchestrated line of work with the über-bombast and complex playing, even on this bands scale of work. The acoustic Skalds And Shadows tries to raise the crowd up like a new Bards Song but doesn’t get my lighter as high as it did on the single release. I enjoy the flute a lot, though. Speaking of singles, Fly is still a brilliant track with the hard rock leanings and oriental keyboards. Love ‘em! I would say my favourites are Carry The Blessed Home (a beautiful yet hard edged ballad), The New Order (intro brings Led Zeppelin to my mind, don’t know about you) and Turn The Page (Those march drums and the nananaa-part are simply fantastic, listening to this one on repeat constantly). Hansi Kursch hasn’t missed one octave during these few years. His gruffy yet piercing wail is still one of the most unique and in my opinion best voices in metal. The guitar widdlings are kept in appropriate amounts in both technicality and melody. Nice amounts of hooks in the interludes too. To conclude this rant of one of my most anticipated releases of the year, I will perform a short questionnaire: Q: Did I expect the most mind-swallowing, melodystorming, metallizing album
that ever could be produced? |
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Killing Songs : This Will Never End, Turn The Page, Fly, Carry The Blessed Home, Another Stranger Me, Lionheart, The Edge & The New Order |
Aleksie
quoted
88 / 100
Ken quoted 85 / 100 Adam quoted 80 / 100 Dylan quoted 95 / 100 |
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