IMAGINATIONS FROM THE OTHER SIDE

After the mediocre Somewhere far Beyond this was really a nice surprise. Produced by Flemming Rasmussen ( Metallica, Morbid Angel) at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark Imaginations from the Other Side was elaborate like no Blind Guardian album before it. The production skill used on this album is very professional and brings out the best in the music.

The elaborate and lavish title track kicks of the album. There are so many parts and leads on this track that it is almost a mini-epic. I heard in an interview it took them half a year to write this one track. The style hasn´t changed since the last album as this is still German Power Metal. But the execution of the project is much better. There are lots of layer of guitar, not unlike Metallica´s Master of Puppets and ...And Justice for All. And Hansi´s vocals are really aggressive throughout the whole album. This is Blind Guardian´s most aggressive album, and the angry vocals might scare a prog head or two away.

It´s hard to pick out any song as they are all very well composed and performed, but the title track is a classic.

It´s hard to say if this album really has any prog relevance as this is essentially Heavy Metal. But the Symphonic sound and the many parts in the songs makes up for that more than enough.

It is a near flawless album, but 4 stars will do as Blind Guardian would be even better on later albums.

A critical milestone for the band .

In the mailing list of rock music community, i-Rock!, people are now discussing this power metal band from Germany. The discussion has been fruitful and compelling that led me respinning the CD of "Imaginations From The Other Side" album. Am not quite sure when did I purchase this album as I purchased most albums of Blind Guardian since I fell in love with "Nightfall in Middle Earth" album which blew me away and I gave this album with five stars rating at this site.

It is interesting to note that Lim Djoni, the guy who posted the topic of this band in i-Rock! music community mailing list, that he started loving Blind Guardian with this "Imaginations From The Other Side" because since this album the band's sound improved significantly than their previous albums. If that is the case then this album could be considered as important milestone for the band's career in metal scene. I am then curious to understand more about the music.

In fact, Lim Djoni is right .. I have seen the song of this album is different substantially Than previous one, say "Follow The Blind" but it's very similar in style with "Nightfall in Middle Earth" album. So, no wonder that I love this album.

The melody of songs in this album are all catchy and engaging especially when it combines the unique singing style of Hansi Kursch plus stunning guitar solo. I can feel from the opening track "Imaginations From The Other Side" until the closing track "And The Story Ends" all of them have catchy melody delivered mostly through vocal and choirs. Not only that. The flow of melody from one song to another track that follows flows beautifully and all of them build a cohesive album. The arrangements are also all excellent especially when combined with the nice melodies.

Another interesting thing is on the harmonies created by singing style of Hansi Kursch backed with well crafted choirs that follow are all excellent. When the vocal parts combined with the music, they all form beautifully crafted song. Take fourth track "The Script For My Requiem" which produces excellent harmonies has really made this song engaging the mind. Especially, when this song moves brilliantly to the next song "Mordred's Song" which starts nicely with acoustic guitar fills.

I have no doubt on musicianship of the band members in this album. They all have great songwriting skills that have been tested through their releases of excellent power metal albums. It's obvious that the virtuosities of lead guitar player are something of important to observe. The guitar sound is truly unique Blind Guardian and sounds really good. Overall performance is excellent.

Overall, I consider that this is one of well respected power metal bands that deserve the attention of metalheads in the globe. The composition is tight and the music is unique Blind Guardian sounds, and I have found no other band that sounds alike. This is an excellent power metal album. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

"Imaginations From The Other Side" has this cool cover art of a gothic looking frame that is sitting on a desk, and in this frame you can see another world(the other side). On the rear cover you see the same frame but from the other side, so it's like your in this other world looking into the room. The title track lyrically speaks of how when you were a child you could use your imagination to see the tale that never ends, and speaks about Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Merlin the Magician and Frodo and the Ring. It talks about how we need to break down the walls around our hearts to see, to use our imaginations.

"Imaginations From The Other Side" opens with some haunting sounds before heavy drums pound before the guitars come flying in. Vocals a minute in as it settles briefly. A punishing soundscape follows with some ripping guitar after the chorus. Heavy drums and passionate vocals 5 1/2 minutes in. I really like the chorus. A thunderous intro greets us in "I'm Alive" before it calms down with acoustic guitar. It doesn't last long though as it is trampled underfoot by what sounds like a herd of buffalo.This is uptempo and heavy. I think they call this Power Metal. Haha. Very impressive track. "A Past And Future Secret" is an acoustic song with reserved vocals. Drums and flute join in.The vocals do get passionate at times later on. "The Script For My Requiem" opens with bass before drums stomp all over the soundscape. Vocals come in screaming. The drumming is outstanding on this one.

"Mordren's Song" opens with acoustic guitar and lighter vocals. It gets heavier but it's mid-paced and the drums aren't as dominant. Some great guitar comes and goes. "Born In A Mourning Hall" opens with thundering drums as guitar, followed by vocals join in. The vocals are rough and the drums and riffs are relentless. Some incredible guitar after 3 minutes.This is a crushing song. "Bright Eyes" along with the title track are my two favourites.This one opens with a dark atmosphere which I love before vocals and guitar start to build. A great chorus on this one. Riffs and screaming guitar after 3 minutes. "Another Holy War" is another uptempo song with relentless drums. Hansi offers up a great vocal performance here. "And The Story Ends" is a mid-paced powerful song with lots of crunch. This is an excellent closing track. Check out the drum / guitar melody 2 minutes in and at 4 minutes. The vocals and guitar really stand out on this one. Vocal melodies are a highlight as well.

Another winner from these German Power Metal gods. These guys really do create great lyrics to go with their pedal to the Metal style of playing.

Is this the best Blind Guardian's album? In my opinion, along with "Nightfall on Middle Earth", is their best offering!

Clearly supasing the previous (but still very good) Somewhere Far Beyond, the band released their hardest album to date (it's still their most outrageous one...), with a lot of intrincated passages, and a lofty guitar work... The typical Blind Guardian's guitar sound started in some songs from Tales from the Twilight World, it was expanded in Somewhere Far Beyond, and here it was totally perfectionated.

Because in Imaginations from the Other Side we have a consolidated band. This great guitar sound and doubled guitar harmonies are the band's trademark, like the unique Hansi's voice... So in this album we have finally a Blind Guardian's album wich sounds just to Blind Guardian. Far are the times of the typical speed metal of the beginnings, and the obvious influences in Somewhere far Beyond... On Imaginations we have only this personal metal made by this germans. Speed riffing, long instrumental sections, medieval harmonies, lyrics about mithology and fantasy... Just Blind Guardian!

Being their hardest band's album, the keyboards are in a second place... They give the music a lot of textures and depth, but always in the shadows. The protagonists of the album are the incredible Olbrich and Siepen's guitars, and the broken Hansi's voice. So being this album very rich musically, I think it's a bit repetitive after a lot of listenings anyway... This is the only fact I think it's under the later Nightfall in Middle Earth, because this posterior effort is more variated. But in terms of quality, like I said, Imaginatios from the Other Side is still the best Blind Guardian's album.

Best Tracks: this album is short, so it has really no fillers... All the tracks are really impressive (although the hardest ones are not very different between them...) But my favourites are the tittle song (a very strong opening...), I'm Alive (I specially love the chorus...), Mordred's Song (maybe the best guitar harmonies of the album...) and And the Story Ends (an epic farewell...)

Conclusion: of all the amount of metal albums made by german bands through the 90's, Imaginations from the Other Side is undoubtly one of the best... It's powerful, it's progressive, and it's technically awesome. The four musicians were in top form, and they clearly surpased their previous efforts with this unique mixture between speed metal, power metal, medieval music and some classic heavy. So I recommend this album to every metal fan, both prog lovers or not. If you are into this kind of music, you'll surely enjoy this jewel called Imaginatios from the Other Side.

My rating: ****

Blind Guardian's Imaginations From the Other Side is a forceful power metal album of the sort we've all come to expect from Blind Guardian... and that, in a way, is part of the reason why I feel it's a rather middling release from them. The performances are decent enough, but they and the songwriting are all more or less exactly along the lines we expect from power metal these days. The end product is clearly a highly polished one - but it's polished to the point of sounding sterile and artificial to my ears, an exercise in setting out a blueprint for Dragonforce and a horde of other super-fast power metal bands in the coming years as opposed to a creation of something genuine and sincere.

'Imaginations from the Other Side' - Blind Guardian (81/100)

It's a strange thing; Imaginations from the Other Side is considered by some to be the greatest album of Blind Guardian's career. In at least a couple of places I've checked, it stands as their highest-rated accomplishment; yet, it seems to get overlooked whenever there's an earnest, casual discussion of the band. Depending on their own relative backgrounds, people are quick to excitement over the intelligent bombast of Nightfall in Middle-Earth, or the punch of their speed metal origins, and some most over the blend of eras they forged with Tales from the Twilight World and Somewhere Far Beyond. By contrast, Imaginations from the Other Side falls in that liminal region between the bold transition of their third and fourth albums, and the ambitious heights they would hit on the sixth and seventh. Though it would be unfair to label Imaginations as a reimagining of Somewhere Far Beyond, the fact remains that the major revelations that came on either side of it have given the album a sense of 'middle child syndrome'. It's a shame, really-- though it's a few spots away from being my favourite Blind Guardian album, it's easily the most consistent album of their career.

I'd hate to give the impression that I mean to undermine Imaginations from the Other Side's own unique developments to this incredible band's sound. Though much of the heavy-duty evolution was over by their fifth album, Blind Guardian saw fit to highlight their progressive leanings on this one. Somewhere Far Beyond was forward-thinking for its genre, but had very little to it that would place it amidst the progressive metal pantheon. I do think Imaginations from the Other Side is the band's most strictly 'prog metal' output; although they would get wackier on the next two albums (A Night at the Opera in particular), Blind Guardian's increasingly orchestral arrangements actually saw fit to distance them from being associated with the likes of traditional progressive metal. Hansi Kürsch has expressed the influences drawn from bands like Fates Warning and Savatage, and I'd argue that Imaginations from the Other Side is the album where those influences are most apparent.

If anything most characterizes Imaginations relative to their other albums, it's the tone and inspiration behind it. If there's anything Blind Guardian fans and detractors alike can agree upon, it's the band's fervent dedication to their fantastical source material. Every alchemical combination of elves, dwarves, and dime-a-dozen chosen ones has been explored ad nauseam in power metal, and it was decidedly uncharacteristic for a band like Blind Guardian to have set aside the escapism to write about the pain and ruin we might like to be escaping from in the first place. These songs are still veiled in fantastical and historical imagery, but only thinly so; unlike Somewhere Far Beyond or Nightfall in Middle-Earth or any bleeding album by Rhapsody, the fantasy is not an end in itself. Fear of death, self-conscious anxiety and the uphill struggle of real life are all powerfully expressed in the lyrics, amplified further still by a particularly aggressive vocal performance from Hansi. Suffice to say, lyrics like "Bright Eyes" ("...blinded by fear of life...") leave little room for interpretation as a call to noble quests and eternal glory. Even so, anyone who would otherwise miss the fantasy element in the music are covered; Blind Guardian's focus on the Crusades and the Legend of King Arthur are not a world away from their usual lyrical fare, but it's enough of a shift to make it freshly distinct from their other exploits.

Imaginations from the Other Side may not come across as a career-defining epic, but most of the songs collected herein are excellent. Although the brooding, mid-paced title track is arguably the most iconic song here, the greatest standouts are "Mordred's Song" and "Bright Eyes". I'm not sure either of these songs could have fit on any of the albums before or after; this was the point in Blind Guardian's discography when they were progressive without yet becoming overwhelmed with orchestration, and the two highlights reflect that powerfully. Although "Bright Eyes" is an original tune, I've always had the weird impression that it was a cover of a pop song; it feels too vulnerable and bitter to have been written strictly as a power metal song, but it does go to show Blind Guardian have a lot more versatility and range than their haters give them credit for.

The album delivers a satisfying blend of high-octane tracks with more lavish pieces. Only the underwhelming speed-fuelled "Another Holy War" falls below the high standard I have for classic-era Blind Guardian, and even then, I only notice it because of how consistently impressive the rest of the album tends to be. If we look at the band's discography sequentially, Imaginations from the Other Side might appear less thrilling than it really is; the argument could be made that the album entailed an essential consolidation of their progressive threads, but it's nigh-undeniable that they have taken far bolder leaps in their career. Regardless, with a grasp of style, songwriting and execution as brilliant as they had by the point of Imaginations, I would happily digest another dozen albums of this sort with little or no evolution to distinguish them. Of course, by Nightfall in Middle-Earth, they had dismissed any notion of stagnation, taking some of the most promising ideas here to even greater heights.

This finely produced and performed album by Blind Guardian sees the prog-metal group blazing ahead at full speed, shredding out a savage assault of power metal showcasing shrieking vocals, blistering drumming, and lightning fast riffing. The effect is intense and dramatic. It definitely makes a forceful impression, but it isn't necessarily a great one.

When it comes down to it, Imaginations From the Other Side is artistic speed metal (with the occasional bit of Renaissance fair style), that fits very well alongside Blind Guardian's other offerings. It's fast, intense, absurd, and raw. There's nothing to criticize in this album's songwriting, which is dramatic and densely composed, or the band's playing, which is razor sharp - it's simply a sound that is hard to really enjoy.

I'm a casual fan of the band, and gave their highest rated album (Nightfall in Middle Earth) a pass because the lyrics were shrieking about Morgoth and Noldor elves... without that nostalgia connection I find Blind Guardian's sound bland, despite its intensity. It isn't bad, it's just not approachable for those of us preferring nuance, dynamics, emotion, or style in our prog metal.

If you need some monster speed metal mixed with your madrigal, then check out Imaginations from the Otherside. In fact, check it out even if you don't, because you may find yourself liking the screams and fireworks, but in my opinion it doesn't reach the heights produced by others in the genre. Songwriting: 3 - Instrumental Performances: 3 - Lyrics/Vocals: 3 - Style/Emotion/Replay: 2