TALES FROM THE TWILIGHT WORLD

Tales From the Twilight World is teh first inclination that BG was moving into unique territoy. While they are still power metal through ad through, Kursch begins to add elements that would come to set the band apart from their guitar-wanking contemporaries. Hansi begins to layer his vocals, though not nearly as much as on Nightfall or A Night at the Opera (as if the Queen influence wasn't obvious enough). Although the band speeds along in power metal fashion, there is a lot more musicality here than on many of their contemporaries' albums.

"Traveler in Time" opens the album with Gregorian chanting and a dirge-like riff before exploding inot power metal ferocity. It's one of my favorite BG tunes. "Lord of the Rings" tries to condense Tolkien's epic masterpiece inot 3 minutes. Bad move, Hansi. Still, the arrangements are nice and it's one of my favorite tracks off this album."Welcome to Dying" and "Lost in the Twilight Hall" are the other highlights of the album, with the latter being another classic.

Tales is the start of something better for Blind Guardian. From here they would add medieval sounds and much more vocal layering. Metal fans can't go wrong with this, but proggies might want to go straight to Nightfall in Middle Earth.

Grade: C

'Tales from the Twilight World' - Blind Guardian (81/100)

This will undoubtedly seem like a left-field association for most people, but I can't help but feel there are more similarities between Blind Guardian's Tales from the Twilight World and Death's Spiritual Healing than first impressions would appear to indicate-- certainly to the point where I will often recall one while listening to the other. Both albums were released in 1990, ten months apart from one another, both constitute the third full-length in their respective bands' discographies, and while we're on the topic, it's arguable that both albums are unduly overlooked in the context of later, better-sculpted masterpieces. What really enforced this psychic association however is the common role the albums share in each band's artistic development. Where Spiritual Healing merged Death's primitive origins with a freshly progressive and technical outlook, so the same could be said for Blind Guardian. Tales from the Twilight World represents a unique blend of the band's gritty speed metal with the lavishly arranged prog-power hybrid we know them for. It was Blind Guardian's first truly 'great' album, and though it may sound primitive in the context of what the band have done since, the fusion of eras still makes it a fairly unique statement in their career.

Admittedly, I didn't always feel so warmly towards Tales from the Twilight World, and it wasn't until a more recent revisitation of the album that I realized what I had been missing. In fact, the primitive speed metal grit that turned me off initially about the album is exactly what I like most about it now; particularly from A Night at the Opera onward, Blind Guardian have become increasingly refined in their presentation. Considering the technical demands of their music, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there's a certain amorphous energy in raw-produced music that Blind Guardian had lost by the time they transitioned completely on their fourth record, Somewhere Far Beyond. On Tales from the Twilight World, Blind Guardian were in the midst of that transition. The album's style has more in common with the progressive trends of later albums. Acoustic arrangements are featured heavily (see: "Lord of the Rings") and some of the albums best tracks highlight increasingly sophisticated songwriting. While "Lost in the Twilight Hall" and "The Last Candle" are both fueled with the same ravenous speed as the material on Blind Guardian's first two albums, the songwriting is more ambitious in its scope. Even at this relatively early stage, the band had already adopted the 'more is more' approach to their execution; the now-signature vocal arrangements were as complex and lavishly overblown as anything heard in power metal in the day. Of course, any claims to complexity that Tales might claim are dwarfed by the bombastic insanity of A Night at the Opera. Even if Blind Guardian would ascend to ever-more ridiculous heights with their orchestration, the ambition here was considerable, and the retroactive context doesn't serve to hurt that impression.

Although it's safe to call this the first 'modern' Blind Guardian album, the sound and feel of Tales from the Twilight World shares far more in common with Battalions of Fear and Follow the Blind than any well-laboured masterpieces that came afterward. Even if songs like the classic "Lord of the Rings" show them operating with an unprecedented level of musical sophistication, their recording still sounds a significant step away from the standards of the 'big names'-- in hindsight, this limitation is a large part of what gives the album its unique charm. Blind Guardian have never been a slow band by any means, but the growing sophistication would eventually come at the cost of some of their aggression. Fans of the band sometimes forget just how fierce Blind Guardian really were at the start, and though they would have lost part of that energy by the next album, there were no signs of slowing down here; "Traveler in Time" and "Welcome to Dying" sound just as ear-splittingly energetic as anything they did on the first two albums, with the added benefit of improved arrangements. Hansi Kursch had hinted at his now-signature choral overdubs earlier on, but it's only here where the big vocal impressions came full force-- even then, there's still an audible presence of the visceral 'gang shout' in these choruses. Considering that the vast majority of power metal favours a glossy representation, it is powerful to hear those bombastic aspirations performed with a proud coat of grime.

Even if the album doesn't always feel as coherent as Somewhere Far Beyond or Nightfall in Middle-Earth, there is a concentration of excellent songs here that is impossible to ignore. Only a handful of songs on the first two albums compare to the bite of "Traveler in Time", "Welcome to Dying" and "Goodbye My Friend". Simultaneously, their boundaries were expanded with relatively forward-thinking tracks like "Lord of the Rings" and "Lost in the Twilight Hall". For what it's worth, I'm glad I gave this album another chance. It's the work of a band in transition to be sure, but in navigating the evolution from speed to power metal, they created the first in a string of masterpieces that only ended sixteen years later with A Twist in the Myth. Even then, there are some days when I'd argue they're still going as strong.

Third album of BG from 1990 is an improvement over the previous two , but not in big cantity, some changes are made, specially at the vocal parts and here and there at instrumental passages. Now the band explore more the speed metal teritory including on some pieces a more elaborate sound and manner of composing, even some acustic parts and mellow vocal parts. Also this album is a tipycal german teutonic metal album, BG has it's own sound and is a influence for many younger bands, specially on this field but also on prog metal. The album entitled Tales from twilight world has some killer guitar riffs and stunning solos ex are opening track Traveller in time and my fav piece from here Welcome to dying, made by the same guitarista as on previous albums. The vocal parts is again based on rough moments but now is more eleborate and Hansi Kürsch is more confident in his singing posibilities. The drumer Thomen The Omen Stauch did a great job, yet not fantastic because the drum chops are concentrate almost only on speedy aproach, but is ok. All the pieces are good, some of them are quite diffrent from the rest like: Altair 4 or Weird dreams, who are more elaborate , but keeping that speed aproach, again killer riffs and solos. So, this third album is another example of how must sound a speed metal album, we can't talk yet about a prog metal album, this status BG offers only from Nightfall in middle arth on. A good album all the way who desearves for sure, at least from my side 3 stars. I prefer the first one more, but this one is close. Forget to mention , Kai Hansen, the mentor and the discoverer of Bling Guardian is invited to do some vocal parts and guitar on the piece Lost in the twilight hall, again good.

"Tales From the Twilight World" is the third full-length studio album by German power metal act Blind Guardian. The album was released through No Remorse Records in October 1990. It´s the successor to "Follow the Blind" from April 1989. Just as the case was on the first two albums, "Tales From the Twilight World" was produced by Kalle Trapp.

Stylistically the material on "Tales From the Twilight World" is a developed and more power metal influenced version of the more raw speed/power metal sound of the first two albums. The vocal part of the music has changed quite a bit and now features a lot of harmony and choir parts, and lead vocalist/bassist Hansi Kürsch has now been given much more memorable and melodic vocal parts to sing. He varies the way he sings and he uses more techniques than before, which make that part of the music a lot more interesting than the case was on the first couple of albums. The lead guitar work has also changed and is now more memorable and also features a charming folk influence. The basis of the tracks is still quite powerful and energetic speed metal with sharp speed/thrash metal riffing and pounding fast-paced drumming. It´s the combination of the influences which makes "Tales From the Twilight World" the unique sounding and intriguing album release it is.

Blind Guardian understand how to create drama and epic moments with the use of dynamics, and the album features both hard edged choruses, epic choruses, and even the occasional acoustic folky part. Compared to the two preceding album releases, "Tales From the Twilight World" features better quality production values, and it´s overall a pretty well sounding release. Upon conclustion this is a transitional album for Blind Guardian which points to their epic power metal (near) future but still features a lot of the raw speed metal riffs and rhythms of the first two albums. It´s not a perfect release by any means and Blind Guardian still had a way to go before reaching power metal heaven, but they are definitely well on their way on this album. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

Tales From the Twilight World catches Blind Guardian in the midst of their transformation from a power metal-flavoured hybrid of speed and thrash metal to masters of purebred power metal; to a large extent, more or less every album they have put out since has followed the lead set by this one, which set the blueprint for their sound.

With lyrical subjects drawn from a range of genre fiction touchstones, the album is the band's most confident of their first three, and whilst at a first listen it's hard not to get into the spirit of things, on repeated listens some parts become increasingly trite and irritating (in particular, the chanted refrain in Tommyknockers is just unbearable). This is the point where Blind Guardian became a decidedly acquired taste, so if you have the taste for them then good for you, give it a go - but if you find it falls flat, perhaps they aren't the power metal crew for you.