My 100 Favorite Metal Bands Pt. 15: Blind Guardian

Blind Guardian is a band that it took me a long time to get into. Power metal was really the last genre I started listening to frequently. I do not really understand why that is. My best friend was into it far earlier than I was. I guess I did not see the same level of aggression in it as thrash and death metal. Blind Guardian is one of the first power metal bands I listened to though. Their sound is epic and glorious. The band focuses on fantasy themes, including doing a concept album on Tolkien's The Silmarillion. But they bring enough aggression into the mix to avoid falling into the same traps as fellow European power metal bands like Rhapsody of Fire, Stratovarius, and the like.

FAVORITE ALBUM: IMAGINATIONS FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Year in Metal: 1998

BEHEMOTH: PANDEMONIC INCANTATIONS
This album found Behemoth at a crossroads. For years, Behemoth was an underground black metal band out of Poland. However, this album found Behemoth adding more and more death metal influences to their sound. The same death metal influences that would later come to define their sound. Behemoth was still mostly a black metal band, but their sound was undergoing changes. This is a very powerful and aggressive album, and is one of the better albums by the band.

BLIND GUARDIAN: NIGHTFALL IN MIDDLE EARTH
This album is a concept album covering J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Silmarillion". I am not a Tolkien expert by any means so I have no idea of the accuracy of the story, but Blind Guardian does a masterful job of spinning an epic tale. There are short spoken interludes between several of the songs which are meant to further the story along. Such interludes are helpful. Otherwise, this is typical epic power metal by a band that has forged an amazing career at it.

BOLT THROWER: MERCENARY
A comeback album of sorts by Bolt Thrower. This is the first album after Karl Willetts returned. In the meantime, Bolt Thrower had done a few tours with other vocalists, such as Martin Van Drunen. However, the band never released an album with another singer. This is fairly typical Bolt Thrower output, fantastic old school death metal. This album does include one of the band's best songs, the anthemic " No Guts, No Glory".

DEATH: THE SOUND OF PERSEVERANCE
Of course this album was going to make it on here. This is one of my favorite albums of all time. Death's swansong is an amazing slab of progressive death metal. Chuck Schuldiner did a masterful job of songwriting on this release. The album completely transcends the death metal genre to become a certifiable work of art. Schuldiner's riffs, song structures, and lyrics are completely without par. Unfortunately, this was the band's final album.

ICED EARTH: SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
Iced Earth, the amazing power/thrash metal band from the United States, had been around for nearly fifteen years by this point, but this is their first truly great album, in my opinion. All of the elements seemed to come together on this release. Jon Schaefer's riffs have always been the focal point in the band, but Matt Barlow's vocals really shine through on this album. The songwriting is also very strong on this album, and it featured the prelude to the Something Wicked concept in the final three songs.

Honorable Mentions: Cradle of Filth: Cruelty and the Beast; Fear Factory: Obsolete; Hammerfall: Legacy of Kings; Metallica: Garage Inc.; Opeth: My Arms, Your Hearse; Slayer: Diabolus in Musicana

Bands that Formed in 1998: Chimaira, Tyr

Year in Metal: 1995

As I mentioned earlier, for the next few weeks, posts will be less frequent. Please bear with me. I have a major trial coming up soon that I am spending the majority of my time preparing for.

AT THE GATES: SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL
Who's honestly surprised to see this one here? This was a massively imfluential album for the melodeath genre and is the album most people think of when they think of that style. Oddly At the Gates streamlined their sound quite a bit. Their earlier material sounds little like this one. The album is hard-hitting, aggressive, and fast. For good reason, it is an absolute classic. Unfortunately, At the Gates broke up afterwards.

BLIND GUARDIAN: IMAGINATIONS FROM THE OTHER SIDE
This is probably my favorite Blind Guardian album. It is still reasonably aggressive, for Blind Guardian anyway, with an excellent sense of melody. The German power metal has never sounded as good as they do on this release. It is a darker sound than some of their earlier albums, which adds to the mystique of this release. Blind Guardian would become overly complicated on later releases, this was the last album where they were wholly concentrated on putting out quality songs.

DARK TRANQUILLITY: THE GALLERY
I am a huge Dark Tranquillity fan, and this is their finest album. This was before the band became too reliant on electronic elements and their last that was pure Swedish melodic death metal, plain and simple. Along with the above At the Gates album, this is one of the hallmarks of the Gothenburg style of melodic death, with dual leads and gruff vocals driving the music. The reissue is a must as it has the band covering tracks from Metallica, Iron Maiden, Kreator, Mercyful Fate, and Sacred Reich.

DEATH: SYMBOLIC
This is probably my favorite album by Death, as it combines the band's earlier death metal sound with the more progressive sound exhibited by the band's final album. Chuck Schuldiner's vocals are different, higher and more melodic, than they were on the band's earlier material. The razor-sharp riffs remain and Schuldiner's keen sense of songwriting is definitely still present. Some of these songs, such as "Crystal Mountain" are absolute classics.

PARADISE LOST: DRACONIAN TIMES
I had a hard time between this album and My Dying Bride's 1995 release, but I ultimately chose Paradise Lost because it was an early favorite album. This was one of my formative albums. Paradise Lost's sound was in a state of flux at this point, they were not really playing doom metal or gothic metal, but more of a traditional metal with gothic and doom influences. I have loved this album ever since I first heard it. The dynamics are incredible and the riffs are amazing. The vocals are incredibly powerful as well. This is just a great album, and an overlooked classic.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Alice in Chains: Alice in Chains, Cathedral: The Carnival Bizarre, Faith No More: King for a Day...Fool for a Lifetime, Fear Factory: Demanufacture, Immortal: Battles in the North, King Diamond: The Spider's Lullabye, Moonspell: Wolfheart, My Dying Bride: The Angel and the Dark River, Opeth: Orchid, Trouble: Plastic Green Head, White Zombie: Astro Creep: 2000.

BANDS THAT FORMED IN 1995: Borknagar, Ensiferum, Shadows Fall, Xasthur.

Initial Impressions: Blind Guardian: At the Edge of Time

Power metal is not one of my favorite genres, although I enjoy quite a bit of it. Blind Guardian is one of the bands that I really like, having gotten into them through my best friend. The band is one of the pioneering power metal bands, being influenced by groups like Iron Maiden and Helloween. The Blind Guardian of today though is not nearly as fast as they once were, those elements have been replaced by continued progression.

This album is a bit of a return to the faster Blind Guardian albums of the past, but still not a return to their earliest albums. But speed is not necessary when the band is as good as Blind Guardian at writing interesting albums with catchy songs. There is a reason that Blind Guardian is at the forefront of the power metal genre. The band has simply never recorded a bad album. This one is no exception, featuring some truly great songs.

There is some increased experimentation with orchestras on this album. There are several parts with lots of string instruments playing along with the main riffs. This does not have the effect of sounding cheesy at all, in fact it is very well done. Blind Guardian has always sounded somewhat classical anyway, so the additions of the string instruments add to that sound.

The lyrics of course deal with fantasy elements. Blind Guardian is well-known as being major fans of Tolkien and other fantasy stories and dress as medieval minstrels for their stage show. So, if you like your metal brutal as fuck, stay away from this one. I am not a huge fantasy fan, but Blind Guardian's albums are so good that I have no problem with the lyrical subject matter. Besides, I do enjoy the Lord of the Rings movies.

Blind Guardian keeps trudging along on this one. I will say that it's the best Blind Guardian album in years. Although I do not have a lot to compare it to, having only heard one of their albums from the last ten years as I prefer their earlier material. It was better than A Twist in the Myth though, so that counts for something. This really is a very good power metal album, so if you enjoy the genre, check it out.

5 Important Bands To Me From 1 Genre: Pt. 1: Power Metal

Huh, there hasn't been much going on lately in the world of metal. No big releases lately, no major feuds, well there have been but nothing much worth commenting on here. So here I am, knowing I need to write something because I've been slacking, but not having much to write about.

Well after brainstorming and glancing through my prior posts, I notice that I have not had much to say about power metal. Power metal is a genre that it took me a little while to get into. Not because I did not care for the music, far from it, but because I have been so focused on the more extreme genres like death and thrash metal.

Power metal is my best friend's favorite genre, but like I said, it took me a bit longer to really get into it. I will start today's post, the first in a new series, with five power metal bands that I got into before I really got into power metal. The point of this series is to look at five bands from one genre that have affected my tastes in some way or another.

1. Queensryche

This band is kind of a fusion between power metal and progressive metal, particularly on their earlier material. Their later material dropped much of the power metal influence but the band was at least as important as Jag Panzer and Fates Warning on the American scene. I have two of their earlier albums and two of their mid-era albums. I much prefer their earlier stuff which is faster, more aggressive, and more emotional than the rest of their material. Geoff Tate has one of the best voices in metal. This was the first power metal band I really got into. The band did not really lead me to any other bands and my tastes mostly remained stagnant from here.

2. Iced Earth
I always liked the album covers for this band but never really knew what to expect from them. I had heard that they were kind of like a thrashier Iron Maiden and this comparison is what lead me to bite the bullet and check them out. The comparison proved to be reasonably accurate. The riffs were very similar to Maiden, except the galloping was not from the bass, but rather the rhythm guitar. Matt Barlow's voice was incredible in its own way. Unfortunately Iced Earth has had some difficulty in keeping singers and Barlow was out of the band for awhile. He is back now, but this has hurt Iced Earth's ability to become the force they deserve to be in American metal. Iced Earth eventually lead me to Symphony X and Blind Guardian.

3. Symphony X
Symphony X is similar to Queensryche in that they are more of a progressive power metal band. I became interested in this band when they released The Odyssey, a concept album about the Greek epic poem. As a big fan of Greek mythology in general, and that poem in particular, I HAD to check this out. The album is great, although it lags in a few places and is definitely longer than it should be. Still, the band sounded like a more drawn out and epic Iced Earth. Not bad at all. Their latest album is a concept album revolving around Milton's Paradise Lost.

4. Children of Bodom
This is kind of an odd band to be here, but once you get past the harsh vocal style, it begins to become apparent that Children of Bodom is indeed a power metal band. The melodic structure, wailing guitar solos, keyboards all are closer to Blind Guardian than to melodic death metal bands like Dark Tranquillity and In Flames that the band often gets lumped in with. At one time, I didn't think music could possibly get faster than Children of Bodom. Some of their songs are still incredibly fast but the band has slowed quite a bit in recent albums. Too bad, they just couldn't keep up the pace. This band lead me to Kalmah, Norther, Skyfire, Destroy Destroy Destroy, and other power metal bands with harsher vocals.

5. Blind Guardian
This is arguably the most important band in the second stage of European power metal. Helloween helped create the genre, but Blind Guardian perfected it. Blind Guardian is one of the most musically gifted bands in metal, after Iron Maiden, and has a great sense of melody and structure. Their early albums are incredible and their later ones still maintain a degree of that early power. This band made it okay to enjoy Tolkien in metal and even wrote a song about Peter Pan. Not many bands can pull that kind of thing off. After Blind Guardian, I became very interested in power metal bands. Some good, some great, some not so great. Blind Guardian though, is still my favorite power metal band.

That's it for this installment.