Blind Guardian – At the Edge of Time (2010)

For the some fans of the band “A Twist in the Myth” was a somewhat mediocre release, but with “At the Edge of Time” they return as powerful as ever. With a very epic release, Blind Guardian shows no signs of succumbing to mediocrity and will blow you away with around 60 minutes of pure unadulterated Power Metal with some Symphonic and Progressive elements.

As you can expect, the songwriting on “At the Edge of Time” is both inspired and magical. With only a few sub par sections, all 10 songs in the regular edition of the CD are pure Blind Guardian magic. Being a bit more epic than on their last release, we finally get powerful songs that will have you chanting as you prepare to march into battle.

Hansi Kürsch is still at the top of his game, and on “At the Edge of Time” he delivers in every single level. The versatility of this vocalist is put to the test with the different style of tracks presented in this release. Being and epic ballad like “War of the Thrones” or a full-on Symphonic Power Metal anthem “Sacred Worlds”, he immediately makes the songs 100 times better with his vocal abilities.

The second selling point of the band is their impressive guitar acrobatics present through the whole album, and in songs like “Tanelorn” and “Valkyries” they shine as impressively as ever. André Olbrich has always been the force behind the band’s impressive music (writing the music with Hansi) and his skills keep getting better with time. The rhythm guitars of provided by Marcus Siepen also create very solid riffs and powerful atmospheres that perfectly complement a ‘full-speed’ solo and the vocal ranges of Hansi.

The band’s ‘new’ drummer Frederik Ehmke shows that he can keep up with the rest and delivers a very diverse and tightly executed performance. And he even plays some flutes and bagpipes in this release. Rounding up the music, as always, we have a wide variety session musician providing the bass guitar (not that impressive), as well as other elements such as: keyboards, piano, violin, and a five piece choir. All of these elements add the epicness factor to the band’s music, and while personally we think that Blind Guardian have always sounded a bit less ‘epic’ than Rhapsody of Fire, they can still hold their own and create a very rich aural experience.

Even though all of this elements sound great and the musical composition skills are very good, Blind Guardian does fall flat in some places and this album has some ‘weak’ sections that kind of eliminate the flow of some songs like “Ride Into Obsession”, but there isn’t anything major (or completely uninspired) that would kill the flow of this impressive release.

If you are a fan of Blind Guardian, we totally recommend this album since it features most of the elements that have made the band one of your favorites over the years. With the overall epicness factor of this release being high, we also would recommend this album to any fan of the genre that is not too familiar with Blind Guardian, or that it’s trying to get into the band and can’t seem to find any of their earlier releases (besides “A Twist in the Myth”).

Release: August 24th, 2010

Country: Germany