BLIND GUARDIAN — Somewhere Far Beyond - Revisited (review)

BLIND GUARDIAN — Somewhere Far Beyond - Revisited album cover Album · 2024 · Power Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
adg211288
You Can't Improve Perfection...

...But You Can Do It Justice.

Blind Guardian re-recording Somewhere Far Beyond, one of their best and most beloved of albums that was originally released in 1992, has to be one of, if not THE most pointless of exercises that any metal band could set-out to undertake. The original album already has a remastered version done in 2007 and it still sounds as good as it ever did in 2024.

I get that the Revisited version of Somewhere Far Beyond is to be treated as something of a (slightly belated) 30th anniversary celebration but that is perhaps something better celebrated with the accompanying live version that is a full performance of the album. That has been released separately as a digital download otherwise it is found on disc in the boxset version along with a blu-ray of the same performance (Rock Hard Festival 2022) and one other (Hellfest Festival 2022). But there feels little reason to buy the Revisited album itself if you already own a copy of Somewhere Far Beyond. The original is power metal perfection. A new version just cannot compare.

But at the end of the day it is still Somewhere Far Beyond, one of the greatest power metal albums anyone ever made and giving it anything less than the full five stars would be mean-spirited. It's actually a cracking performance from a band who are more than three decades older and a couple of line-up changes down the line. They do it justice. There is a moment here and there where the ears pick up and something doesn't feel quite right but a lot of the time it can be forgotten that you're listening to a re-recording. The heaviness of the original hasn't been sacrificed. The production hasn't been too over polished in a modern way. Hansi Kürsch still sounds absolutely incredible, but hey, we knew that from their continued work including their last album The God Machine.

Is it worth owning? If for some reason you can't get your hands on a copy of the original album then absolutely. Definitely if you want the live stuff on disc and not just a download and doubly so if you want the blu-ray, which I think has to surely be the biggest draw the more expensive triple disc package. But I can't lie, I can't see myself personally choosing to listen to it over the original. Somewhere Far Beyond is one of my most played albums of all time. It ranks second on my Last.fm account where Blind Guardian is my most played band overall. To start listening to a new version more than it now would almost feel like some sort of betrayal. Not that Blind Guardian has betrayed their legacy by remaking it, but on a very personal level, for me, it would feel that way. Maybe other fans will get what I mean.
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