Blind Guardian
"A Night At The Opera"
(Century Media Records) 

At last, they have returned! The mighty Blind Guardian have released their new album, and it's their first one of the new millennium! Blind Guardian are, without a doubt, one of the greatest power metal bands of all time! They are phenomenal musicians and songwriters (and singer/bassist Hansi Kursch sure has a golden set of pipes on him!), they have been going at it for over a decade, and have been very influential, helping pave the way for much of today's power and progressive metal. This album was a long time in coming (their last one being 1998's "Nightfall In Middle Earth"), but it was well worth the wait! This new one is ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! All of Blind Guardian's albums are masterpieces, of course, but they have truly outdone themselves with this one! It is a masterpiece among masterpieces, an album which surely many future metal albums will be measured up against! It sounds as if Hansi and the boys gave this album everything they had and then some, 150%! There is not one song on the album that isn't played and crafted to perfection, and producer Charlie Bauerfeind (who has also produced Helloween, Gamma Ray, and Angra, among others) did a fantastic job! All the classic Blind Guardian ingredients are in the music; galloping speed metal riffs, double bass drumming, rich smooth, soaring, operatic vocal harmonies on every song, classical and medieval/folk influences, and complex, sophisticated arrangements. There is even a fourteen-minute-long epic, "And Then There Was Silence" (Originally released as a single prior to the album), a first for Blind Guardian. Quite a piece of work! It almost needs to be reviewed separately! It combines the classic Blind Guardian style with classical and folk music, and contains many different arrangements and time changes. I'd say that very soon, this song will be mentioned in the same sentence alongside Iron Maiden's "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" and Helloween's "Halloween"! As for the rest of "A Night At The Opera", there are, of course, classic style Blind Guardian fist pumping metal tunes, like "Battlefield" (which has a medieval-style intro), "Under The Ice" (which leads off with a sitar), "The Soulforged", and "Punishment Divine". There are also a few mid tempo songs, like opener "Precious Jerusalem (which sounds influenced by British prog-rockers Magnum, if anyone is familiar with them), "Wait For An Answer", and "Age Of False Innocence". We also have a couple of ballads; "The Maiden And The Minstrel Knight", which, if there ever was a song that could be considered the ultimate power ballad, this would be it! It begins in a classical/folkish way, becoming more "metal", with power chords and heavy drums, as it goes along, still using the aforementioned styles. A brilliantly written and played song! The second ballad is the album's closer, "Mies Del Dolar", which is used as the U.S. bonus track. It, too, is a classically influenced song, played on classical guitar, with strings to back it up, and sung in a different language (not sure what it is but it sounds like Latin). Another beautiful piece of work! And finally, we have "Sadly Sings Destiny", which is basically a straight up hard rock song, done Blind Guardian style! It begins with a raunchy, Foghat-style guitar riff, and contains some Slash-style talking guitar, a la "Paradise City" (I kid you not! In fact, I hear this style of guitar playing on many of the album's songs. I wonder if Slash snuck into the studio and put down some guitar playing of his own!), but also has Guardian's trademark vocal harmonies. Kind of unusual for Blind Guardian to do a song like this but very cool all the same! Kicks like a mule, this tune does! Guess everybody needs to let loose and rock out now and then! Well, there we have it! The brand new Blind Guardian! As I said before, they've come up with a classic here! They have taken their classic style and expanded it tenfold, building upon their previous work to create this masterpiece! I always expect greatness from Blind Guardian, but this even exceeded my expectations! Hopefully this album will get them the (long overdue!) recognition they deserve in a big way! They are already stars overseas, but have only just begun to be appreciated Stateside over the last few years. If this album doesn't do it, nothing will! Blind Guardian, I dare say, deserve to be as big as Metallica or Pantera! And they're neck on neck with Iced Earth to be the Iron Maiden of this millennium! So it's only fitting that Hansi Kursch and Jon Schaffer teamed up to do the Demons And Wizards project, but that's another story. "A Night At The Opera" is my first album of 2002, but it's already a contender for "Album Of The Year!"

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