Emerging out of frosty isolation we fall through a portal to fight a battle with the ancients in a Sacred World...
#3
Blind Guardian - At the Edge of Time
When I first put on At the Edge of Time, I felt an all-powerful stirring in the room. As military-style drums pounded below bombastic orchestral hits punctuating the air, Hansi Kursch took the reins of the musical juggernaut from the mass of choral voices. By the chorus took hold, I had risen out of my chair, my fist raised to the sky in triumph. Seldom do records compel the body into what the heart desires but this one did many times over.
Though power metal has been in an almost irrevocable decline in recent years, ever since
A Night at the Opera in 2002,
Blind Guardian has emerged as the Byzantium to a crumbling Rome. Their command of melody and rhythm as metal musicians writing pieces for symphonies and choirs is simply unsurpassed.
In Ride into Obsession, it sounds as if the band sweeps itself up in the music, scarcely keeping pace with the colt-like rhythm. Tanelorn (Into the Void) is a welcome return to their earlier speed metal sound while the epic closer Wheel of Time outclasses their contemporaries with a Middle Eastern inspired marsala, replete with Arabic instrumentation and exotic melody.
Of course, Andre Olbrich's vibrant fret runs in tandem with Mr. Marcus Siepen sound invigorating as ever. Mr. Frederik Ehmke provides the percussion assault with the requisite expertise we've come to expect. They haven't shed the propensity for gravitas they cultivated on Nightfall in Middle-Earth nor have they forsaken the blistering, visceral thrashiness perfected on Imaginations From the Other Side - it's a synthesis of all of their work, impeccably polished with new and intricate touches.
Speaking to Mr. Kursch
earlier this year, he believed that music spoke a magical language and they were just one of its many interpreters. If this is the case, Blind Guardian are like the men of letters of old - to be revered with awe.
