BLIND GUARDIAN — Battalions of Fear (review)

BLIND GUARDIAN — Battalions of Fear album cover Album · 1988 · Speed Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Mjöllnir
A full throttle debut, moulding harsh thrash into power metal epics that reminds of the harder edged sound of Helloween on their first EP and “Walls of Jericho” album. Coming back to this album from being familiar with their much later output (“Imaginations From the Other Side” onwards), it was nice to hear them with such a stripped down sound, but the over the top tendencies are present and the trademark majestic choruses are already taking shape.

Belting it out in fine style, “Majesty” bursts out after a strange fairground intro. On offer is 7 minutes of blinding speed built around its raw sing-a-long chorus, and riffs slicing to and fro frantically with a youthful Hansi Kursch crying out in his most throaty performance ever (but still recognisable to later fans). Kicking off the chorus with a rousing “whoaaaaaaaah” was the way to go! A good start gets complimented by the menacing and more restrained pace of “Guardian of the Blind”. Sprightly instrumental “Trial by the Archon” leads into a couple of satisfying back-to-basics affairs, “Wizard’s Crown” and crowd favourite “Run for the Night” with such a domineering chorus.

“The Martyr” returns us to the darker, more expansive material at the start of the album, with slower, locked in parts giving way to bursts of forward momentum and the mad flurries of André Olbrich’s leads. Blind Guardian here very much developing their talent for unpredictable song craft with this and the title track. The album closes with two instrumentals, “By the Gates of Moria” and the CD bonus “Gandalf’s Rebirth” utilising similar speed, melody and class, and borrowing liberally from Dvorak’s New World Symphony. A taste of things to come?

An album as straight ahead and so sure of its purpose benefits from a track-by-track review, as a listener could be lead to believe its jolly youthful careering one dimensional, but there’s more at work here if you keep on at it. Raw and wild by their standards, yes, but the ingredients and ambition of the later albums still very much bubbling under the surface.
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