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Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side review



Reviewer:
8.5

1428 users:
8.98
Band: Blind Guardian
Album: Imaginations From The Other Side
Style: Power metal
Release date: April 05, 1995
Guest review by: Slayer666


01. Imaginations From The Other Side
02. I'm Alive
03. A Past And Future Secret
04. The Script For My Requiem
05. Mordred's Song
06. Born In A Mourning Hall
07. Bright Eyes
08. Another Holy War
09. And The Story Ends
10. The Wizard [Uriah Heep cover] [Japanese bonus]
11. The Script For My Requiem [demo] [Japanese bonus]
12. I'm A Alive [demo] [Japanese bonus]
13. Imaginations From The Other Side [demo] [Japanese bonus]
14. A Past And Future Secret [demo] [Japanese bonus]
15. A Past And Future Secret [demo] [2007 re-release bonus]
16. Imaginations From The Other Side [demo] [2007 re-release bonus]
17. The Script For My Requiem [demo] [2007 re-release bonus]
+ Bright Eyes [video] [2007 re-release bonus]
+ Born In A Morning Hall [video] [2007 re-release bonus]

What makes a good Power Metal album? Catchy guitar riffs, good symphonic elements, mighty power chords? If your answer to this is YES, then you are gonna have a great time with this album, that's for sure. Legendary Blind Guardian obviously didn't want to risk anything, so they took the stuff mentioned before and polished it to near-perfection. Yep, near-perfection. Personally, I don't like Power Metal too much, but I'll be a good little reviewer, and do this completely objectively.

It seems that this album was made to some sort of a strict structure : go hard on the guitars and drums for a while, put a great guitar solo here-and-there, and then to finish, do a memorable power chord. This goes for almost all songs. Of course, this may seem dull, but believe me, it's really not so. The structure may be the same for most of the songs, but the structure's ingredients are more than different enough to capture and keep your attention for the entire album. And make you enjoy it, of course.

I feel the need to briefly describe every element of the structure. The drumming is decent, nothing spectacular, though. Hansi's vocals are in a form of half-screams except in power chords where he sings clearly, and does it very well, I must say. The power chords themselves are not as repetitive as they can be with some bands and they fit the rest of the music excellently. Now, the guitars. Solos are frequent on this album, and rightly so : they are very melodic and beautiful. Riffs are catchy and some of them are pretty crushing, almost like Thrash. Actually, I'm very pleasantly surprised by the song's speed and harshness. Before this album, the only experience with Power Metal I had was Nightwish, Kamelot and Sonata Arctica. This is way more brutal than any of them.

Unfortunately, all that work they did to perfect the "structure" made this album very.... classic. What I mean is that you won't hear even a hint of something new and innovative (if you don't count greater brutality than usual). This is your most typical Power Metal, only perfected. If it weren't for that brutality, I would give the album 3 for Originality. But, if that's not a problem for you, and you like Power Metal, then by all means go with this album. You won't make a mistake, guarantee.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 9
Songwriting: 10
Originality: 6
Production: 9

Written by Slayer666 | 16.01.2009




Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.

Guest review by
Pazu
Rating:
9.3
This is it, Blind Guardian's best effort and the very definition of Power metal. Imaginations From The Other Side has everything the genre needs: heavy drums, perfect guitar play and both beautifully calm and powerful vocals culminating in choruses that you'll recognize even ages after you last heard them.

If we take a look at the history of the band and their previous releases, we can see that this album is the product of a decade of improving. What Battalions Of Fear had started with speed and Somewhere Far Beyond added with more emotional elements, Imaginations perfected. Well, almost at least. The lyrical themes are not quite inspired enough to reach the perfect score and "I'm Alive" feels just a little weaker than the rest of the album, mostly because it lacks its recognizable sound that all the other seven tracks have without a doubt. However, I'm complaining on the highest level here. The lyrics are still far from the typical European cheerful and cheesy style and there are many people out there who love "I'm Alive," I just don't happen to be one of them.

Read more ››
published 27.12.2010 | Comments (15)


Comments

Comments: 11   Visited by: 161 users
19.01.2009 - 21:43
Rating: 9
Elio
Red Nightmare
Woah, anoher good review from this dude. I totally agree with the rating this time.
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IntoPlighT said: "Slipknot is 15 years old how the fuck is that Nu metal?"

BEST. QUOTE. EVER.
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09.02.2009 - 21:37
ioannisk
Originality 6?? anyway fair score all in all. And the story ends is a masterpiece...
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16.04.2009 - 14:41
Uirapuru
Liver Failure
I liked it a lot. Heavy still catchy, songs like ''I'm Alive'', ''Mordred song'' (althought i prefer the acoustic version), ''Bright Eyes'' and ''the story ends'' much like their previous album, and the first one with a decent production.
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member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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30.08.2009 - 22:39
Ellrohir
Heaven Knight
Not saying this album is "bad", but i never understood, why it is so favorite...BG has better - at least Nightfall and A Night At The Opera
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My rest seems now calm and deep
Finally I got my dead man sleep


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09.09.2009 - 15:13
Rating: 8
Slayer666
Written by Ellrohir on 30.08.2009 at 22:39

Not saying this album is "bad", but i never understood, why it is so favorite...BG has better - at least Nightfall and A Night At The Opera

Eh, beats me really.... I don't even understand why people like Power Metal at all. In the case you're wondering why I reviewed this album, I wanted to see if I could do a decent job reviewing a genre I really, really dislike.
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09.09.2009 - 16:12
Ellrohir
Heaven Knight
Hehe...what a coincidence...i am listening to this album right now and asking myself, why i didnt liked it before
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My rest seems now calm and deep
Finally I got my dead man sleep


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12.09.2009 - 05:12
Lord_Regnier
"Actually, I'm very pleasantly surprised by the song's speed and harshness. Before this album, the only experience with Power Metal I had was Nightwish, Kamelot and Sonata Arctica. This is way more brutal than any of them."

Of course. It's because this album is an old Powermetal album. At that time, PM music was really Power/Speed metal or, like we called it back then, melodic speed metal. Fast and a bit rough. Quite different from the slow, commercial, soft, cheesy, generic, mainstream, utterly boring crap we get all the time since at least a decade. It was before PM took the downward spiral of mediocrity this genre is unable to get out of.

This is true PM in my book. Most of the stuff people call PM nowadays is not even PM to me, more like standard heavy metal, hard rock, or even pop rock at times. (those who were there in the late 80s and early 90s and still remember how it was back then will know what I mean)

I've been a big PM fan long ago but, like you, I hate PM today. I can't stand this genre anymore. When you compare old PM to modern day PM, you easily realize how PM sucks nowadays.

I always disliked Nightwish, Sonata and Kamelot, by the way.

Imo, this album is the last very good Blind Guardian album.

Judging by the song "Sacred", the next BG album will be horrendous. It's even worse than "A Twist In The Myth", which was already awful.
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"Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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26.05.2010 - 21:13
Rating: 10
BlankFile
This album is my favourite of BG and their best album alongside with "Night at the Opera" and "Nightfall on Middle Earth". Its a spectacular album, with fast and powerful songs. One of the most pure Power Metal albuns out there. True.
I love every song in this album, theres not one that i dislike, but off course i have favourites such as "Imaginations From the Other Side", The furious "Im Alive", the beautiful acoustic "A Past and Future Secret", "Script for the Requiem" who has one of the best chorus in a BG song, "Born in a Mourning Hall" another BG hymn and last but not least my favourite song of BG of all: "And the Story Ends". This songs blows my mind totally! Personally i think its the best BG song ever. What else can i say? Pure genius album!
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26.05.2011 - 19:36
Rating: 10
Anriii
6 points in originality? You got to be kidding. Find anything that sounds similar to this and please tell me. As this is my favorite PM album (I compare any new ones to this, to see how far they are from perfection), I would surely like to listen anything that sounds same.

And the writer of the review admits he had heard 3 power metal bands only before (which are all great but not as old as Blind Guardian or this album) and says this sounds simmilar to other power metal? Be serious, that is like saying that Vivaldi is not original cause his music sounds same as Vanessa Mae
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26.05.2011 - 23:18
Rating: 8
Slayer666
Written by Anriii on 26.05.2011 at 19:36

And the writer of the review admits he had heard 3 power metal bands only before (which are all great but not as old as Blind Guardian or this album) and says this sounds simmilar to other power metal? Be serious, that is like saying that Vivaldi is not original cause his music sounds same as Vanessa Mae

I know, I know, but the problem is I didn't know that back then. >_<
Even now I'm mostly a n00b in Power Metal (because I profoundly dislike it), but back when this review was written, I was almost totally clueless about the genre.
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16.10.2016 - 23:46
Rating: 7
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Written by Anriii on 26.05.2011 at 19:36

6 points in originality? You got to be kidding. Find anything that sounds similar to this and please tell me. As this is my favorite PM album (I compare any new ones to this, to see how far they are from perfection), I would surely like to listen anything that sounds same.

And the writer of the review admits he had heard 3 power metal bands only before (which are all great but not as old as Blind Guardian or this album) and says this sounds simmilar to other power metal? Be serious, that is like saying that Vivaldi is not original cause his music sounds same as Vanessa Mae

I have to agree , band even deserves 10 points up to Nightfall album .. after Nightfall we can give 1,2,3,4 not more
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I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens.

Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"

I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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