Artist: Blind Guardian
Label: Century Media
Release Date: 3/19/02 US, 3/4/02 Europe
|
|
Title: A Night at the Opera Artist: Blind Guardian Label: Century Media Release Date: 3/19/02 US, 3/4/02 Europe |
Judgment Committee Reviews | Rating |
|
4 | ||
|
4 | ||
|
4 | ||
|
|
Go to Reader Reviews | ||
Abyss's Review:
The good news is that Blind Guardian has come out with a new album. Unfortunately for the band, I don't think it's going to do that well because all of their fans are currently camping out on lines for tickets to the next Lord of the Rings movie. A Night at the Opera is a power metal powerhouse, taking all things power metal (i.e. high vocals and a cheesiness rivaled only by France), adding a flair for melody and strong songwriting, and coming up with an album that is fun to sing along with, even if you're only brave enough to do it when you're alone in your room.
"The good news is that Blind Guardian has come out with a new album."
Whether you're a dwarf or elf, cleric or mage, or gnome or hobgoblin, this album will keep you and your dungeon master banging your heads. All in all, it's what you would expect from this band. Blind Guardian remain one of the defining bands in their genre, and I remain a fan even though I have a constant urge to make fun of them. The lyrics actually seem a little toned down for them, which is surprising, considering I was told that some of them are based on the Dragonlance books (Dragonlance: Preventing young men from getting laid since the Age of Dreams!). Now I don't know nearly enough about the Dragonlance series to comment on what these songs are about (Okay, I admit it, I read some of them in middle school, but I don't remember them... Really!... Don't you roll your eyes at me!), so I won't even try for fear of looking ridiculous. The important thing is that this album bounces around, reminding me of Helloween's earlier work, and the vocals are operatic, but not painfully so. They've managed to put out an album that will cater to the faithful, but not alienate those with only a passing interest in this style.
"Recommending this album seems rather pointless because if you're a fan of the genre, you already know these guys are in the top tier." Recommending this album seems rather pointless because if you're a fan of the genre, you already know these guys are in the top tier, and if you don't like this genre, you're probably not reading this. So anyway: If you ran out and bought this you wouldn't be rolling the (seven-sided) dice, you'd definitely come up a winner. (Get it? Roll the dice? Dungeons & Dragons? Roll Playing games? Now that's comedy!) One word review: Cool.
Death's Review:
A Night at the Opera. Hmmm... Where have I heard that album title before? Wayne and Garth would surely know... I'm sure that Wayne and Garth also would be Blind Guardian fans if they were only exposed to the band in the proper setting. Century Media is set to see fit that that metaphorically happens here in America this time around, especially after the band's impressive chart showing with its CD single release (And Then There Was Silence) a few months back. This album has the potential to make a significant commercial impact in the United States, despite the fact that (if you listen for it) the beginning of "Age of False Innocence" sounds like Zebra's "Tell Me What You Want" (a comparison that makes me laugh, every time I think of it).But let's get serious for a moment. In many ways A Night at the Opera is the most important power metal release ever to come out here in America. Certainly the most pivotal. A record of such import thus cannot stand or fall on the recommendation of the cast of Wayne's World. Of course Wayne and Garth will dig it, along with every other Rennesance Fair attending, Magic-the-Gathering playing freak who has seen Lord of the Rings more than ten times and who still goes to see Yes and Jethro Tull every time they come through town on tour. The more important question to ask in critically evaluating the ever-increasing commercial force that has become this sort of unofficial world-wide ambassador of power metal, a.k.a. Blind Guardian, is a simple one: Would Freddy Mercury dig it (thus bringing us back to that title)? Surely he could sift through the bombast, in search of the artistry, right?
Right. Because indeed such artistry does exist and is on full display here. Blind Guardian are truly brilliant in their employment of multi-layered vocals and harmonies in service of their brand of "uplifting hard rock featuring blistering guitar leads." Personally, I am still trying to get into Hansi Kursch's voice-- I simply have never found it altogether all that appealing. Still, there's no denying the power and professionalism of the outfit. I truly am rooting for Blind Guardian. It would be great for heavy metal in the United States if Blind Guardian could break through a little bit and make a strong showing for the underground. I'm all for it. Put 'em on Ozzfest and MTV, right? What the heck. Fuck everybody. It'd be good for this country. And it would be funny as shit.
"This album has the potential to make a significant commercial impact in the United States." 'Cause I honestly still don't get Blind Guardian. Their songs just aren't emotional enough to be Queen, their progressive element falls miles short of Dream Theater, their crunch never could match prime Metallica and Megadeth and their hard rock songwriting technique is always in the ballpark but never quite there for me, really. To me, it sounds like new-era Savatage on happy pills with a singer whose voice I don't like sped up and replayed as heard through the minds of some combination of a pack of medieval elves, the cast of an old Sinbad movie, and the leftover puppets from the "cast" of "Muppets Teasure Island." Like I said, I don't get it.
Some stuff like "Sadly Sings Destiny" is truly catchy and is obviously the work of polished professionals at the top of their game. "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight," a battle tale from yore if I ever heard one, is far too typical, although I must confess that vocalist Hansi Kursch probably sounds at his best and his most intense here, an epic track that would fit well in a Braveheart sequel and might even make Manowar blush. "The Soulforged" has a cool riff, and the fourteen-minute epic, "And Then There Was Silence" is... well... it's epic, but it is also cool. The musicianship and the production on the album as a whole are also first rate.
And thus, the paradox of Blind Guardian. Can you buy into this shit? Can you relate to this music day-to-day? Are we even meant to? Perhaps this is fantasy, and relating to it is beside the point. Yet, with so much metal out there, I need to get practical in my evaluations. In the hypothetical five-CD changer in my head right now are the following CDs: Blind Guardian A Night at the Opera; Cannibal Corpse Gore Obsessed; Arch Enemy Wages of Sin; Soilwork Natural Born Chaos and Centinex Diabolical Desolation. And as I walk to work on a cold Monday morning in Manhattan and try to block out the street noise with my Discman blaring as I dodge traffic and shove people out of the way, my music is my sanctuary. And inside those headphones, I don't want to skip around in tights, I want to kick some ass. Blind Guardian does not deliver in this regard.
"And thus, the paradox of Blind Guardian. Can you buy into this shit?" At stretches there are some incredible instrumental passages ("Wait for an Answer"), but honestly here's no room for Blind Guardian in my player right now, hypothetical or otherwise, even though I realize the gravity of what I am saying. They are good, perhaps even great. They are poised to gain in popularity here in the U.S. They even deserve it. Blind Guardian are good musicians and their success is good for metal. So I'm torn. What should I base my score on, my own taste or my objective assessment of the score the band deserves? I'm going to split the difference here. I know this is good stuff. I'm thinking about going to Atlanta this fall to ProgPower to see them play live (and to check out that whole event, to which I've never been). Maybe I'll be a big fan some day. I could see them doing a whole Iron Maiden sized arena tour and it being a lot of fun. So I'm going with a four here, and I'll just caution you that you're probably going to have to make up your own mind on this one, I'm simply not qualified. While I'm giving this a decent score, part of me still thinks it's all kind of a pretentious goof.
Hel's Review:
I'm no Blind Guardian expert, but I am familiar with Nightfall in Middle-Earth. It was one of those albums that I picked up because it came highly recommended, listened to and appreciated, then put away. When I found it again in my collection about a year ago, I was shocked. I had forgotten the about whole thing until I ran across it again. That can't be a good sign.
Listening to A Night at the Opera brought back the aforementioned memory, and I wondered how I could forget an album so epic. The answer is simple, it is the same answer as always: too much metal, too little time. That brief period of time over three years ago when I first got and listened to it was simply buried under the pure weight of other albums I've absorbed and processed since then. I will soon get to the point that I will begin to forget which albums from what band I listened to in my role as reviewer, and which albums were from the time before, when I was just an obsessed fan.
"My encroaching senility aside, A Night at the Opera will prove not to be an easy album to forget." My encroaching senility aside, A Night at the Opera will prove not to be an easy album to forget. The sheer force of musical execution alone will carry this record past the usual power metal pitfalls. The music of Blind Guardian may be more aptly termed "prog-power", and I'm not entirely certain I made that up. The frequent, dazzling displays of sheer musicianship eventually evoked a moment of confusion for me, perhaps another sign of senility… During one particularly long instrumental frenzy, I must've dozed off for a second, because I felt like I awoke with a start, but instead of wondering where I was, I wondered what I was listening to. I listen for a second, and relaxed. "Oh, I'm listening to Dream Theater, it's ok." Then the vocals began anew, and I was startled back to the present. Freaky.
Not only are the songs intricate and intense, many are downright catchy and infectious. "Wait for an Answer" is one such song. The very next track is "The Soulforged," a song of personal interest to me. Apparently in November of 2000, there was a vote on the Blind Guardian website for "favourite theme for a Blind Guardian song" and the fans selected the Dragonlance novels by Weis and Hickman as the lyrical topic for a song on the new record. The result is "Soulforged" a song based on Raistlin Majere, my favorite character from the fantasy fiction series. For those not up to date, in the last few years there has been a new series, "The Raistlin Chronicles" of which there currently are, to my knowledge, two books. The song seems to be based on these newer novels, which are quite good, if memory serves. The song highlights Raistlin's dark, ambitious side, yet manages to capture the undertone of his character, a subtle element of decency and sentimentality he tries so hard to deny, the very thing that makes him my favorite, and the favorite of many other Dragonlance fans as well. Plus, it's one of the best songs on the album, topic aside.
"Great care is put into the composition, that much is obvious." Hansi's distinctive gravelly vocal style is another reason I find this band much more tolerable than most power metal these days. His voice deviates enough from the "standard" power metal style to be unique, but is still appealing. The musicianship, we've discussed. Great care is put into the composition, that much is obvious. The production is clear and balanced. A Night at the Opera is epic, larger-than-life and quite worth exploring if you're in the mood for prog-power-fantasy metal.
[- Metal Judgment Home -] [- Email Metal Judgment -]
©1999 Metal Judgment. All rights reserved.