HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: At the Edge of Time – Blind Guardian
If one corner of metal is known most for its dedicated following it is power metal. Taking classic metal’s initial obsession with fantasy and adding more than a few shots of adrenaline has grown into one of metal’s most unique and bombastic subgenres. While its true origins can be debated, among the bands leading the initial charge back in the 1980s was German band BLIND GUARDIAN.
This year marks fifteenth years since the release of the band’s ninth studio album At The Edge of Time. Despite BLIND GUARDIAN’s legacy and reputation in the genre their ninth album always seems to fly under the radar when looking over the band’s career. Following previous masterpieces Imaginations From the Other Side, and Nightfall in Middle Earth and being followed up by the return to their narrative approach on Beyond The Red Mirror, At the Edge of Time and its predecessor A Twist in the Myth often become afterthoughts in the band’s long history. However when revisiting At The Edge of Time today it becomes clear that it was the album that laid the groundwork for a new era of BLIND GUARDIAN that is still going today.
While BLIND GUARDIAN might have begun more speed metal oriented they have adjusted their style over the years into distinct eras. Presently the band’s albums have taken on a more symphonic approach with full orchestras and immense scope. While symphonic elements have always had some presence in previous albums, it is on At The Edge of Time where they are placed firmly in the forefront and this is made clear right from the word go.
The album’s opener Sacred Worlds opens with a full ensemble of strings, brass, choirs and anything else you would expect from a HANS ZIMMER–esque film score. It’s over a minute before the band themselves make their debut with guitar and drums pairing perfectly over the top of the orchestra and Hansi Kürsch’s signature vocal power all create one of BLIND GUARDIAN’s most impressive album openers in their whole career. The game the song was made for…..less impressive.
Even when a track is reminiscent of a style the band have indulged in before, the new approach on At the Edge of Time elevate them into some of the most ambitious tracks the band had done up to this point. Curse My Name’s slower tempo and emphasis on classical instruments harken back to some of BLIND GUARDIAN’s iconic ballads yet the song’s long buildup creates one of the album’s most climatic third acts.
But to also appease the classic fans we have A Voice in the Dark and Ride into Obsession which have all the speed that lovers of the first few BLIND GUARDIAN albums would love. The album incorporates the old with the new as if it’s a passing of the torch from one era of the band the next.
True to any BLIND GUARDIAN album the album draws from various works of literature from fantasy and beyond. After the band’s landmark album Nightfall in Middle Earth the band veered away from drawing from the world of Tolkien and haven’t returned to the world of Arda to this day. Instead At the Edge of Time heavily features two iconic American fantasy series with George R.R. Martins’ A Song of Ice and Fire and Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time with two tracks dedicated to each. For those that don’t know Robert Jordan’s masterpiece, The Wheel of Time is a fourteen book epic and At the Edge of Time is the band’s first, and to this day only, time using it as the basis for songs. A book series this epic needs a song of equal measure to do it justice and the eponymous final track Wheel of Time is to this day one of the band’s biggest triumphs. A nine minute symphonic metal journey that tastefully draws from the source material’s inspiration of eastern culture in regards to the orchestration, and provides one of power metal’s most impactful choruses. What Sacred Worlds does to perfectly set up the album, Wheel of Time does the same to perfectly close it.
At a little over an hour long At the Edge of Time manages to showcase everything the band is known for, whilst also laying the groundwork for everything that would follow. Whether a listener is an older BLIND GUARDIAN fan or newer, this album provides for both in equal measure. Such an album should have been a sure fire contender for ‘best album they have ever made.’
So why did this album seem to pass by without leaving much of an impact on the genre? It’s possible the lack of singles didn’t do the album any favours in building hype. A Voice in the Dark was the only track to be released as a single and receive a music video. While older fans would appreciate the song for the call back to the band’s early years, anyone else may have viewed it as a band who were stagnant. Essentially it doesn’t showcase the album as a whole even remotely.
The more depressing reason is that perhaps BLIND GUARDIAN have become viewed as something more niche than they once were. While the band continue to update their setlists, Wheel of Time and Sacred Worlds often appear even now, they haven’t released a song that has taken off to become a landmark for the genre in many years regardless of the consistent quality of BLIND GUARDIAN’s output. But all things considered do they really need to be concerned with that? BLIND GUARDIAN still have a dedicated following that value their work immensely and continue to produce some of the most grandiose and epic music in power metal. The band’s newest album The God Machine was released to much acclaim and is considered the next step in the band’s musical evolution and were it not for the steps taken on At the Edge of Time to push their sound further, they may not have gotten to that point.
It may not have a The Bard’s Song or Mirror Mirror, but it does have music that shows a band pushing themselves even further and reaffirms BLIND GUARDIAN’s ever evolving identity which makes them one of the most timeless power metal bands.
At the Edge of Time was originally released on July 29th via Nuclear Blast Records.
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