Since I have been constantly badgered about my negativity and frequent non-commitment towards a lot of albums I try to review, I figured I would step aside momentarily and let a guest ramble on for a change. Yes, you can acknowledge this as an extreme in non-commitment, but hey, it's all in the name of entertainment. Read on as we invite Commodore RedRum from Swashbuckle to say a “few” words about the new Blind Guardian album, AT THE EDGE OF TIME.
Take it away, Commodore!
Ahoy everybody, Commodore RedRum here from that lovable, yet oh-so hateable pirate band, Swashbuckle. I’ve been asked by the mighty Mark Morton to commandeer his digital interweb space and leave a few words regarding Blind Guardian’s new album AT THE EDGE OF TIME.
“Why should I listen to a half-assed pirate spew a few lines about such a topic,” you ask? Let me provide you with some credentials, for you see you will find nary a fan living in North America that has as much deep-seeded adoration for Blind Guardian as I. Their flags and posters are LITTERED about my house. On their last US tour, I followed them to almost all of their North Eastern dates. You may have seen me there - at the Palladium, B.B. King’s, the Troc, or Jaxx – singing EVERY word to every song. Maybe you saw me at the A TWIST IN THE MYTH album listening party in New York City.
Per chance you’ve noticed that the guitar I play live is the VERY SAME instrument Marcus Siepen used on the NIGHTFALL IN MIDDLE-EARTH tours, the A NIGHT AT THE OPERA record, and the IMAGINATIONS THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS DVD. We recorded the last two Swashbuckle records with it. Every time I pick it up I feel like a little child. I am, without a doubt, a super fan.
That having been said, MANY have heralded AT THE EDGE OF TIME as a return to form for the German kingpins of Power Metal - a harkening back to the era of IMAGINATIONS FROM THE OTHER SIDE, or NIGHTFALL IN MIDDLE-EARTH. I respectfully disagree.
Don’t get me wrong; the record is well put together. The fidelity and production are top notch. The musicianship is stunning, as always. A handful of the glorious choruses almost redefine the term “epic.” I would go as far as to say that AT THE EDGE OF TIME easily trumps their last release, A TWIST IN THE MYTH. Yet something flitting about this album prevents it from reaching the pedestal on which IMAGINATIONS and NIGHTFALL hang out together, throwing themselves a huge all-ager-rager keg party.
The main grievance I’d like to file with Hansi and Andre, specifically as the key songwriters, is the absence of super catchy hook melodies, particularly of the guitar variety. Where is the “Mirror Mirror” track on this record? Where is “The Soulforged” track? Hell, even A TWIST IN THE MYTH had “Turn the Page.” Not one song off of AT THE EDGE OF TIME kicked off and gave me that speechless “THIS SH** IS VALIANT AS F***” feeling. Maybe I’m a weirdo in my need for that…no f*** that, I’m not. Valiant sh** rules, and every good Blind Guardian record has induced that reaction from me. This one simply failed to deliver.
But that’s not to say it doesn’t have its own strong points. The orchestrations are beautiful. I feel these guys could do a really brilliant job scoring a movie. At times the sweeping ensemble seamlessly blends with the metal passages. This is all well and good and I’m sure a lot of people will likely enjoy it, but it’s not necessarily what I’m looking for from Blind Guardian. There’s a gut feeling that stirs within me that I will forever gravitate away from this record and towards their older stuff. C’mon dudes, you’re the guys who wrote “Valhalla,” “Lost in the Twilight Hall,” f***ing “TIME STANDS STILL (AT THE IRON HILL)!” We know you can do better.
Let us put the music aside for a moment and focus on something that is arguably as important as the composition – the lyrics. Hansi is not really well-recognized for his word play and with good cause. Usually his prose is slightly disorganized and leaves a lot to be desired, poetically anyway. His words in the past were marginal. They got by. They did their job. They weren’t the cornerstone of the Blind Guardian experience, but hey, they never needed to be.
Ultimately, the voice behind the words is what is important. But I’m a wordy kind of dude. I enjoy solid lyricism. Give me, and others like me (trust me there’s a lot of us), something to work with. To me the rhetoric found on AT THE EDGE OF TIME is far and away the most lusterless ever seen on a Guardian album. The lyrics are just “there”. Every other song is about a battle and/or war raging on, or a wheel turning. I find them to be criminally uninspired, and on the whole, terribly boring.
Track for track (in no particular order): the tune “Ride Into Obsession” is likely one of the most pleasingly furious songs they’ve had since their early work (remember when they were a speed metal band? Anyone?), and I respect that. “Curse My Name” and “War of the Thrones” are fine ballads, but let’s be honest, nothing is EVER going to touch “The Bard’s Song.”
It’s bittersweet that these guys have such a huge back catalogue of killer songs that they don’t really need to write another stellar track again. That’s astonishingly disheartening. “Sacred Worlds” has an intro worthy of an album starter, but the 9:19 minute length is not really conducive to the flow of the album.
“Road of No Release” and “Control the Divine” I could do without. “Wheel of Time” plucks me out of my suburban setting and drops me right into a scene from Indiana Jones, which I find to be more of a novelty than anything. “A Voice in the Dark” was decent until I saw the music video they did for it, which knocked every one of David Hasselhoff’s videos out of the running for Cheesiest Music Video Ever. Hansi, bro, stop caressing the faces of floating men. Do it for your fans, but most of all, do it for yourself.
These questionable blocking issues aside, I will always be a Blind Guardian fan. A few bad apples don’t spoil the whole bunch. All things considered, I’d rather listen to this than a LOT of what the metal community is churning out these days. I’ll be there this fall, at the front of barricade, singing my f***ing brains out at as many of the tour dates as I can. I will walk out with every piece of merch they are selling, but I won’t have paid a dime….because I’m a pirate. And that’s what we do - steal from everyone. Especially our label mates.
I’d like to thank Mark Morton for giving me the opportunity to talk sh** on my favorite group and I hope Blind Guardian sells a billion copies of AT THE EDGE OF TIME. Also, everyone should keep a weather eye open for the new Swashbuckle record CRIME ALWAYS PAYS… that will be pulling into port this fall on Nuclear Blast Records. I promise that our singer, Admiral Nobeard won’t be touching any dudes.
Cheers
~RedRum
For more information: check out AT THE EDGE OF TIME at Amazon, iTunes, and at the Nuclear Blast online store!
And keep up with Swashbuckle’s nautical nonsense on MySpace, Facebook, and at Nuclear Blast.
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