BLIND GUARDIAN — A Twist in the Myth (review)

BLIND GUARDIAN — A Twist in the Myth album cover Album · 2006 · Power Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
adg211288
A Twist in the Myth is the eight album from Blind Guardian. Released in 2006 this is the album that sees the band taking something of a more straightforward and accessible approach to their songs, especially in contrast to the previous offering A Night at the Opera. The songs are typically shorter with no song hitting the six minute mark, though a couple come close, which means that there is also no real epic track that some of the album’s have, such as And Then There Was Silence from the previous album. The vocals of Hansi Kürsch are not on this album done in multiple layers, creating a sound that was intended to be easier to reproduce live. You only need to browse the Internet a bit to realise that some Blind Guardian fans don’t rate this album so highly, and while I find it to be on the lower end of my own ranking of the group’s albums, this is still pretty solid stuff, albeit not what Blind Guardian fans have come to expect from them.

For the most part the songs of A Twist in the Myth are in the range of ‘good, but not great’, however this album does contain some real gems such as Turn the Page which is a lively piece that could easily have been made into a folk metal song, and almost has that feel anyway with the vocal delivery, and ballad Carry the Blessed Home, which is about Stephen King’s Dark Tower series once again, a popular lyrical theme for Blind Guardian. Perhaps surprisingly another gem is single Fly, which is actually, on a careful listen, one of the most progressively inclined songs on the album. Finally there is Skalds and Shadows, which represents the folk piece of the album. I’ve always liked it when Blind Guardian includes such a song and while this isn’t the best such song they ever did, it remains one of the gems of A Twist in the Myth.

Despite having very few really great moments all in all A Twist in the Myth is just another really solid Blind Guardian release, the real problem here is that it’s just not what fans of the band would really expect to hear from them, it’s less focused on the epic side of the band and is without exception a collection of pretty straightforward songs with no really unexpected moments cropping up, in short once you’re a few tracks in it’s a pretty predictable and even generic album, however one that still sounds like the work of a group of competent musicians to me. While I do really enjoy this album for what it is, I can see why some fans feel let down by it and understand where such people are coming from when they say it is the weakest point in the Blind Guardian catalogue even if I don’t quite agree with it. In short this is a good album, but Blind Guardian can and has done better.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)
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