BLIND GUARDIAN — Beyond the Red Mirror (review)

BLIND GUARDIAN — Beyond the Red Mirror album cover

Album · 2015 · Power Metal

4/5 · 2016-03-16
UMUR

"Beyond the Red Mirror" is the 10th full-length studio album by German power metal act Blind Guardian. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in January 2015. It´s the successor to "At The Edge Of Time" from 2010. "Beyond the Red Mirror" is a sci-fi/fantasy concept album and the sequel to "Imaginations from the Other Side (1995)". As usual Blind Guardian has created a majestic and very ambitious project and in addition to guitars, bass, drums, keyboards/piano, and vocals, the music also features choir sections and classical music sections, delivered by three different choirs and two classical orchestras.

Stylistically there are few surprises if you´re familiar with the band´s combination of power metal and symphonic metal with folk leanings. They shed their original speed metal roots a long time ago, and they´ve played the current style on quite a few releases now. As always the listener is bombarded with walls of sound. This is grand beyond epic and sometimes I forget that this is metal at all, because the guitars are buried in waves of huge choirs and classical orchestration. Sometimes the whole thing sounds a bit disjointed and the band and the orchestra seldom sound like they are in the same room playing (which they in reality pretty surely don´t either), but when everything melts together to an epic whole, it´s quite breathtaking. Blind Guardian also delivers more hard edged power metal parts that´s a bit more "straight metal" and less theatrical, but those moments are few an far between. There are also a couple of ballad type tracks/sections featured on the album, which is nice for the dynamics and variation of the album.

"Beyond the Red Mirror" features a polished and professional sound production. To my ears it´s a bit lifeless sounding though and as mentioned above it doesn´t always succeed in bringing the rock instrumentation and the classical choirs/orchestra parts together in a natural sounding fashion. I also think it´s an error not bringing the guitars more to the front of the mix, which would have made the album more sharper sounding. As it is now it simply sounds a bit overproduced and focusing more on the symphonic aspect of the band´s sound an less on the power metal ditto.

The band are as always really well playing/singing. Blind Guardian are one of those artists where you are never in doubt that it´s them playing. They have a very distinct sound. And my admiration for their unique sound and style is what saves "Beyond the Red Mirror". Not that it´s a bad quality album or anything like that, because it´s certainly not, but I personally miss the times when Blind Guardian kicked some ass and didn´t focus so much on choirs and orchestras. A little less polish and more rawness and power would do the trick. Well...when that is said "Beyond the Red Mirror" is still a high quality release and to those who enjoy the more symphonic oriented Blind Guardian style, it´s certainly a worthwhile release. One of their better releases in recent years. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.