Blind Guardian - Fly

*=Staff's pick	Fly* Skalds And Shadows (acoustic version)* In A Gadda Da Vida (Iron Butterfly cover)

Genre	Heavy Metal	Hansi Kursch	Vocals
Tracks	3	Andre Olbrich	Guitar
Runningtime	13 Min.	Marcus Siepen	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	-	Bass
Release	23 Feb. 2006	Frederik Ehmke	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Savage Circus, Persuader

Blind Guardian are soon about to release their new full lenght album, tentativly titled either A Twist In The Myth or Borderline Myth and due for release sometime late August 2006, and here we are being served a tiny teaser of what we can expect. After the album A Night At The Opera (2002), perhaps even the guys in Blind Guardian themselves thought it was going a bit over the top with the progressivness and the massive arrangements that sometimes took away the attention from the actual music.

Previous drummer Thomen Stauch (now in Savage Circus) actually left the band mainly due to the fact that he did not like the direction the band went. He wanted to play more old school metal. If the song Fly is a good example on how the upcoming full length from Blind Guardian album will sound, which only time will tell, I think he actually will like it.

It is indeed a step back to their old and classic sound. A lot of the massive arrangements and orchestration are gone and it sounds more like a 2 guitars-one bass-drums-and vocals band now again but of course everything is still surrounded by a really powerful aura but without being overworked. The song Fly has strong vibes of the Imaginations From The Other Side album and could easily have fitted on it when it was released back in the days. Nice work with bridges and refrains. It has a tiny bit of the more pompous arrangements from The A Night At The Opera album but with an updated sound.

The production is good, very clear and pretty straight to the point. Without being able to put my finger on where and when, the album Somewhere Far Beyond also makes itself reminded during Fly. It is a just a general overall feeling. For you who know your Blind Guardian, you realize that is a good sign and a proof that they probably will reach where they are aiming with the new album. If the rest of the material is following this pattern, that is.

The cover In A Gadda Da Vida is nothing to talk about, really. A pretty useless cover and is only there for the purpose of filling out the playing time, I assume. The song Skalds and Shadows is a very good one, however. A song completely on par with the best of their slower and acoustic ones on Imaginations From The Other Side/Somewhere Far Beyond. Delicious melodies and a real mighty feeling but what I miss is a little better punch in the refrain. It is bound to be a future live favourite, though. Since it is called "acoustic version" here I suspect that a more electrified version will show up on the album, which I anticipate a lot.

In conclusion, this promises very good for the upcoming album. It feels fresh and more vital then in a while and most important of all: more metal again.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	8	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tommy