Finishing The 'Imaginations From The Other Side' Story

No one sounds like Blind Guardian; no one. The venerable Germans have carved out a unique home in a genre where unicorn-worshipping Hammerfall clones come and go with alarming regularity. Instead of following the pack Blind Guardian mix powerful symphonic metal with progressive leanings and gripping narratives to create tunes that stand the test of time. Their latest record, Beyond The Red Mirror, is such an example. Five years in the making, ...Mirror forms a conceptual sequel to 1995’s Imaginations From The Other Side, both in terms of bombast and storyline. Kursch explains: “We left things pretty open-ended for one of the characters on Imaginations…, and I really wanted to finish his story. He was just a kid then and I always wondered what happened to him — did he step through the portal? What became of his life? To finally create that story for him — to finish it — was very satisfying.”

"We went out vinyl hunting — we rediscovered Queen. Suddenly the ‘70s were important again!"

And why the five-year gap between this record and 2010’s At The Edge Of Time? “Look, in an ideal world we’d have a new Blind Guardian record every three years — but it never works out that way,” laughs Kursch. “We did take a bit of extra time between these records and that was because we toured the last record very extensively and we spent more time in the studio getting this one done.”

Although symphonic bombast has become Blind Guardian’s sonic trademark it wasn’t always that way. In the band’s early years they churned out a muscular brand of straightahead speed metal. It was only on their third album, Tales From The Twilight World, that they began to develop a more expansive musical approach. Kursch reveals that the shift coincided with the band embracing old favourites and new technology. “Around that time two things were happening. First of all, we started experimenting with studio equipment — at that time we bought our first 16-track analogue recording machine for example. From there we started experimenting with twin guitar leads and I started layering my vocals. At the same time — and I remember the actual weekend when we went out vinyl hunting — we rediscovered Queen. Suddenly the ‘70s were important again! Before that we were all listening to speed and thrash metal — and that shows on the first few albums. But take a listen to Twilight… and you can see that Queen influence.”

With ten albums under their belt Blind Guardian now have a devilish task trying to construct set lists that please everyone. “We always try and mix things up. Of course this time around we’ll be playing at least four songs off the new record. Otherwise there will be plenty of classics for people, and also some surprises for our Australian fans — stuff we haven’t done there before. We’re proud of our entire career and we want our live show to reflect the breadth of what we’ve done.”