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Rating:
8.6 |
Blind Guardian - Battalions Of Fear
18 May 1988
01. Majesty
02. Guardian Of The Blind
03. Trial By The Archon
04. Wizard's Crown
05. Run For The Night
06. The Martyr
07. Battalions Of Fear
08. By The Gate Of Moria
09. Gandalf's Rebirth [bonus]
This was the first album of the successful German Metal band Blind Guardian, and what an album!! Believe me: you won't see a more mature debut album as this. Blind Guardian worked in some of the songs written under their first name, Lucifer's Heritage, which were released in a demo CD. After that they changed their name to their current name, Blind Guardian, and here is where story begins. They took some songs of their previous CD and they made some others. The result: a wonderful album.
First, they tried to make a sound similar to Helloween, Speed/Power Metal or something similar. But in my opinion they didn't create Power Metal because their first releases, included "Battalions Of Fear", weren't Power Metal, they were SPEED Metal. Power Metal has melodies, and these first albums didn't have melodies, so that the sound of this album is, definitely, Speed Metal.
In this release we can find three very good Metal hymns. First, "Majesty" is the classical song of this CD and the song that every Blind Guardian fan wants to see live. Its beginning is really special and the song is even more special, it hasn't any melody but the chorus is extremely catchy; you'll remember this song as the true hymn of this CD. The second great song is "Guardian Of The Blind." It has a great starting riff and an amazing solo, the song in general is awesome. "Battalions Of Fear" is the third amazing song, it has great guitars along all the song, riffs are especially good, and it has a catchy chorus, too.
Unfortunately, this album has a weak point: "The Martyr." The song is really a bit long, but it's such a boring song that when I listen to it I think it's eternal, it never finishes, it's a nightmare. Poor riffs, poor guitars, poor rhythms, poor... SONG. But a shitty song doesn't make a shitty album, because this album is really a masterpiece, but, of course, this song is a very weak point.
In conclusion, they made a great masterpiece with this debut album, and probably, if "The Martyr" weren't of this album, it would probably receive a better score. If we forgot it, it would have my 100%, but unfortunately the song is in this album and I must rate it. The sound of this CD was only the beginning of an incredible evolution, and if then they were great, later they would be one of the best German Metal bands ever.
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Performance:
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9 |
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Songwriting:
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9 |
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Originality:
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8 |
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Production:
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8 |
written by hottercraft | 06.01.2007 |
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
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Comments
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18
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Users visited:
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Good review! 
This is good album, better than "Follow The Blind" about the "thrashy" Blind Guardian period, in my opinion. I would give it an 8. |
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| Indeed, Battalion of Fear is BG's finest imo, with Nightfall of course ! |
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| Good review. Makes me want to buy this album all the more, cause I don't have it yet. |
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 Talvi - 07.01.2007 at 00:33
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| The rating it's too high. There are only 2 songs that make me want this album: Majesty and title track. Martyr sucks, and the rest are average songs. |
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| A lot of good songs here, but not worth the rating. The good songs are definately 9 but there's a lot of sixes aswell. And the production should be 5. |
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over the years i have moved away from Blind Guardian rather gradually - but this album still is as strong as anything..
very good album indeed. just what metal is supposed to be like
i would probably rank this album as one of my favorite Blind Guardian albums now - rather then before when it would have been lower down.
it has certainly withstood the test of time |
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Arcaliz666 - 01.07.2007 at 23:34
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Written by Katatronik on 06.01.2007 at 16:02
Good review!
This is good album, better than "Follow The Blind" about the "thrashy" Blind Guardian period, in my opinion. I would give it an 8.
Yes, Thrashy Power period during to 87-89 with the albums "Battalions Of Fear" and "Follow The Blind" |
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ThrashMetal_Rulz - 04.11.2007 at 23:53
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| Great album, and good review. Martyr was definetly the weak point of the album, but it wasn't THAT terrible. If i had to rate that one song i'd still give it 6.5 - 7. Also the production wasn't that great and I heard there were a lot of speed metal bands in the mid. 80's, so for original i'd say 7.5. |
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| Majesty! one of my favourite Blind Guardian songs, one of their best album |
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Just good. This ''thrashy'' Blind guardian does not impresses me..
Best songs are ''Guardian Of The Blind'' and ''Run for the night''. |
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I don't get why two 9 and two 8 make an average of 9.6...
The review is good and I agree the album was good. |
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| "Majesty" and "Guardian of the Blind" are for me the best songs of this solid debut album of Blind Guardian. Fast and trashy, their early style was different than the actual one. They were still searching for a solid and permanent identity. This album is a solid 8 out of 10 for me. |m| |
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Written by Baz Anderson on 27.01.2007 at 22:50
over the years i have moved away from Blind Guardian rather gradually - but this album still is as strong as anything..
very good album indeed. just what metal is supposed to be like
i would probably rank this album as one of my favorite Blind Guardian albums now - rather then before when it would have been lower down.
it has certainly withstood the test of time
I prefer this album by far to anything BG released since NIME.
Lots of people complain about the production but give me this kind of raw production over their current multi-layered artificial and mock progressive sound any day. |
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Written by Lord_Regnier on 12.05.2010 at 23:50
I prefer this album by far to anything BG released since NIME.
Hahaha, I probably haven't listened to it again since I wrote that three and a half years ago. |
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Good review, but I don't see how "The Martyr" is that bad of a song, its got similiar song structure as the others on the album, but anyways amazing album!  |
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| The Martyr is a great song!! The whole album is intense and the instrumentals are the perfect way to end it! Love Blind Guardian, and love this album! 10! |
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ErnilEnNaur - 17.08.2011 at 13:15
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| Quite an incredible debut this was and it's probably the best album they released until they got to Somwhere Far Beyond. |
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ErnilEnNaur - 17.08.2011 at 13:15
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| Quite an incredible debut this was and it's probably the best album they released until they got to Somwhere Far Beyond. |
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