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Class 6(66)
Blind Guardian: Imaginations from the other side
11/08/09 || Habakuk
Introduction
When I try to imagine a metal newbie, the image of a pale little loser kid with a Blind Guardian shirt doesn’t leave my head. I’m sure every second person wearing them could recite half of Middle-Earth’s history for me if I wanted to know. Usually, I don’t. Still, I’ll take people wearing Blind Guardian shirts over people wearing humppa-folk-viking-funny-drinking metal shirts any day. I’m that superficial. It looks like the latter are an even bigger group these days and to me they embody everything that’s wrong with metal. And don’t ever carry around a drinking horn. Life is not LARP. Anyway, this CD has been in my collection for ages. Like so often, judge the band for the music, not the people that listen to them. It’s nowhere near as awful, really.
Songwriting
8. When I think of it, it’s been a long time since I last encountered the term “melodic power metal” somewhere. However, I have encountered the terms “operatic metal”, “folk metal”, “humppa metal”, “symphonic metal”, “Dragonforce” and “Hammerfall” a great deal too often. Fuck, why? I mean, obviously there was a time where power metal worked without dumb alcohol lyrics and beer tent music, oozing falsetto gayness or masculine opera singing, but with a heavy edge, complex, intelligent song structures and at the same time NO wankery. Or KEYBOARDS. Granted, on here there are some hints of keyboard use, but they are merely an addition rather than an equal partner to the rest of the band. Or an instrument that gets to play solos. There are no attempts to create atmosphere by pressing the “atmo 3” button on the Casio and sporting a pair of tits in a black corset, but still, lo and behold, there is a lot that deserves the name on “Imaginations from the other side”.
Most songs are longer than 5 minutes and range from a folk-inspired ballad (“A past and future secret”) to a heavier version of the same pattern (“Mordred’s song”) and a catchy single (“Bright Eyes”). However, the five songs that form the bulk of the album are of the heavier kind and account for the “power” in melodic power metal, and a similar but slower song closes the album. Stuff’s not as polished (read: borderline to over-the-top cheesy) as on the later albums, and the songs still appear to enjoy a bit more freedom other than the anthemic numbers on “Nightfall…”. Consequently, “Imaginations from the other side” needs a few spins to really work and only the three tracks mentioned earlier got a slice of my small memory pie after the first listen. Of course, once you listen more often, you’ll get to appreciate the good stuff. It’s just not as blatantly obvious as on “Nightfall…” or the likes, but more subtly embedded into heavy, heterosexual, err… hella good music. No simplistic rocking with your cock out, no showing off, but quality between complexity and catchiness.
Production
7. It’s pretty good, but nothing to go crazy about. Not exactly a bombastic production job, but it sports solid, pounding drums and a rather warm sound that emphasizes on vocals and leads. The crystal clear acoustic parts are where this approach really shines. Rhythm guitar and bass are buzzing in the background but both are definitely not in focus. That role is reserved for André Olbrich’s lead playing, and when his lead guitar joins in with Siepen’s rhythm playing, the guitars actually sound pretty heavy and upfront. At times some instrumental details like the lead during the title track’s chorus drown in a sea of sound, but most of the time it’s possible to make out all the details after a while. The vocals are pretty much unaffected by this and are basically always kept at perfect volume, in the spotlight but never annoying.
Guitars
9. Blind Guardian is all about guitars, quite obviously. A lot of
stuff is happening on Marcus Siepen’s and especially André Olbrich’s
fretboards, and it’s more the exception than the rule that both guitars
play the same riff at the same time. Even though Olbrich isn’t playing
leads ALL the time like on “Nightfall…”, there
are so many of them on this album, it’s almost impossible to get
everything during the first couple of listens. These leads seamlessly
morph into solos, so don’t even get me started on those. On display is
some very, very skilled melodic playing, but as stated in the
introduction, it’s not even close to any kind of wankery.
In three words: Skillful, humble awesomeness. Multiply by two during a
couple of twin guitar parts, add a decent amount of shredding and heavy
(background) riffing, then add some awesome acoustic playing in a couple
of selected songs, and you have a 9. Simple mathematics.
Vocals
8. Hansi Kürsch still had his shit together on this album and shows a
pretty versatile voice pulling off both harsher yet melodic semi-shouts
and clean singing – no, not of the greasy kind – in a great way. He’s
getting some flak for his allegedly forced emotional vocal delivery, and
I’m not a fan of his more recent work myself, but nothing like that is
to be found here. The clean parts work perfectly, simply because he used
to have a good voice. There, I said it. The harsher parts might sound a
bit forced, I’ll give you that… but that’s the whole idea, somehow.
The choruses normally feature several vocal layers, but they don’t feel
like they’re used to mask weaknesses, instead they actually are a quite
sensible way of reinforcing their powerful shout-along character. It
works really well with Kürsch’s style, for whom spending a night at the
opera was definitely no option back in ’95.
Bass
5. Bass is additionally handled by Hansi Kürsch besides the vocals, so special tricks are out of the question, plus, the low-end is dominated by the drumming, so it’s quite obvious the real party’s going on elsewhere. The bass doesn’t care and celebrates its own little special party with no guests and in the basement under the rhythm guitar, with punch-drunk Marcus Siepen politely dropping in at four in the morning to say thanks for the little bit of extra punch.
Drums
9. Thomas Stauch’s drum ming is what holds this album together. As illustrated by his not-so-recent-anymore departure due to musical differences, he used to be a big part of the underlying heaviness the Guardians chose to abandon on later works. His style on “Imaginations…” is basically pretty varied full-speed thrashing, spiced up with marching-drum-like snare fills, a lot of well-executed tom-work and of course a good share of double-bass drumming. This is not show-off playing just for the sense of adding another fill onto the pile, but Mr Stauch plays absolutely devoted to the band’s sound as a whole, subtly creating one more layer of awesomeness in the process. Also, he recognizes when to hold still and pulls off the slower, quiet stuff equally as well as the heavy parts. Muchly appreciated.
Lyrics
6. Nope, they’re not about Hobbits and dwarves. Some songs are (loosely) inspired by medieval themes and there’s the odd Merlin mentioning, others deal with current times, and sometimes the two worlds are mixed, as subtly indicated on the cover art. It’s no full-on nerdery, that’s for sure, but it definitely shows some indications of a nerdy mindset. And they don’t get away mentioning Peter Pan (!) three times throughout the album with me. That costs them at least one point. If at all, I only want to see Peter Pan mentioned in the obituaries. And definitely not more than once.
Cover art
7. Andreas Marschall in all his blue/golden glory. I like it, but it has been seen tons of times. Then again, imagine Blind Guardian without a cover art like this. Yep, “A night at the opera”. “Follow the blind”. “Gay dragons”. Ugh.
Logo
4. Errr, yeah. Alright, but a bit over-used, maybe? It’s not that great, especially the last “n” is a bit awkward.
Booklet
6. Book-let.
Overall and ending rant
If all power metal were like this, no problem. It isn’t, for the simple reason that this is good. “Imaginations…” combines power metal’s accessibility with enough heaviness to make avid newcomers turn to the real good stuff eventually. At the same time it’s of high enough quality to make that same avid listener (meanwhile blood-drenched, corpse-painted and carrying three bullet belts) come back after a couple of years and still like what he hears. Worked for me. Except for the blood, corpse-paint and bullet belts. That stuff’s just gross.
- Information
- Released: 1995
- Label: Virgin
- Website: www.blind-guardian.de
- Band
- Hans Kürsch: vocals, bass
- André Olbrich: lead guitars
- Marcus Siepen: rhythm guitars
- Thomas Stauch: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Imaginations from the other side
- 02. I’m alive
- 03. A past and future secret
- 04. The script for my requiem
- 05. Mordred’s song
- 06. Born in a mourning hall
- 07. Bright eyes
- 08. Another holy war
- 09. And the story ends
