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Blind Guardian - Battalions Of Fear review




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Reviewer:
8.6

729 users:
7.81
Band: Blind Guardian
Album: Battalions Of Fear
Release date: May 1988


01. Majesty
02. Guardian Of The Blind
03. Trial By The Archon
04. Wizard's Crown
05. Run For The Night
06. The Martyr
07. Battalions Of Fear
08. By The Gate Of Moria
09. Gandalf's Rebirth [bonus]

This was the first album of the successful German Metal band Blind Guardian, and what an album!! Believe me: you won't see a more mature debut album as this. Blind Guardian worked in some of the songs written under their first name, Lucifer's Heritage, which were released in a demo CD. After that they changed their name to their current name, Blind Guardian, and here is where story begins. They took some songs of their previous CD and they made some others. The result: a wonderful album.

First, they tried to make a sound similar to Helloween, Speed/Power Metal or something similar. But in my opinion they didn't create Power Metal because their first releases, included "Battalions Of Fear", weren't Power Metal, they were SPEED Metal. Power Metal has melodies, and these first albums didn't have melodies, so that the sound of this album is, definitely, Speed Metal.

In this release we can find three very good Metal hymns. First, "Majesty" is the classical song of this CD and the song that every Blind Guardian fan wants to see live. Its beginning is really special and the song is even more special, it hasn't any melody but the chorus is extremely catchy; you'll remember this song as the true hymn of this CD. The second great song is "Guardian Of The Blind." It has a great starting riff and an amazing solo, the song in general is awesome. "Battalions Of Fear" is the third amazing song, it has great guitars along all the song, riffs are especially good, and it has a catchy chorus, too.

Unfortunately, this album has a weak point: "The Martyr." The song is really a bit long, but it's such a boring song that when I listen to it I think it's eternal, it never finishes, it's a nightmare. Poor riffs, poor guitars, poor rhythms, poor... SONG. But a shitty song doesn't make a shitty album, because this album is really a masterpiece, but, of course, this song is a very weak point.

In conclusion, they made a great masterpiece with this debut album, and probably, if "The Martyr" weren't of this album, it would probably receive a better score. If we forgot it, it would have my 100%, but unfortunately the song is in this album and I must rate it. The sound of this CD was only the beginning of an incredible evolution, and if then they were great, later they would be one of the best German Metal bands ever.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 9
Songwriting: 9
Originality: 8
Production: 8

Written by hottercraft | 06.01.2007




Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.


Comments

Comments: 19   Visited by: 142 users
06.01.2007 - 16:02
Rating: 8
Katatronik
Angel of Lust
Good review!
This is good album, better than "Follow The Blind" about the "thrashy" Blind Guardian period, in my opinion. I would give it an 8.
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"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,
and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
Howard Phillips Lovecraft
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06.01.2007 - 16:52
Rating: 8
ylside

Indeed, Battalion of Fear is BG's finest imo, with Nightfall of course !
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06.01.2007 - 18:32
spirit_inblack
harshhead
Good review. Makes me want to buy this album all the more, cause I don't have it yet.
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07.01.2007 - 00:33
Rating: 4
Talvi

The rating it's too high. There are only 2 songs that make me want this album: Majesty and title track. Martyr sucks, and the rest are average songs.
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My account on other musical pages:
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http://rateyourmusic.com/~Talvi
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08.01.2007 - 00:31
Rating: 8
Spyroid
Rosetta Stoned
A lot of good songs here, but not worth the rating. The good songs are definately 9 but there's a lot of sixes aswell. And the production should be 5.
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27.01.2007 - 22:50
Baz Anderson

over the years i have moved away from Blind Guardian rather gradually - but this album still is as strong as anything..
very good album indeed. just what metal is supposed to be like
i would probably rank this album as one of my favorite Blind Guardian albums now - rather then before when it would have been lower down.
it has certainly withstood the test of time
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01.07.2007 - 23:34
Arcaliz666
Account deleted
Written by Katatronik on 06.01.2007 at 16:02

Good review!
This is good album, better than "Follow The Blind" about the "thrashy" Blind Guardian period, in my opinion. I would give it an 8.


Yes, Thrashy Power period during to 87-89 with the albums "Battalions Of Fear" and "Follow The Blind"
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04.11.2007 - 23:53
ThrashMetal_Rulz
Account deleted
Great album, and good review. Martyr was definetly the weak point of the album, but it wasn't THAT terrible. If i had to rate that one song i'd still give it 6.5 - 7. Also the production wasn't that great and I heard there were a lot of speed metal bands in the mid. 80's, so for original i'd say 7.5.
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27.11.2008 - 16:37
Rating: 8
Powerslavex
Alexskywalker
Majesty! one of my favourite Blind Guardian songs, one of their best album
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16.04.2009 - 13:51
Uirapuru
Liver Failure
Just good. This ''thrashy'' Blind guardian does not impresses me..

Best songs are ''Guardian Of The Blind'' and ''Run for the night''.
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member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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27.07.2009 - 20:53
RorixD

I don't get why two 9 and two 8 make an average of 9.6...
The review is good and I agree the album was good.
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12.05.2010 - 20:29
Rating: 8
BlankFile

"Majesty" and "Guardian of the Blind" are for me the best songs of this solid debut album of Blind Guardian. Fast and trashy, their early style was different than the actual one. They were still searching for a solid and permanent identity. This album is a solid 8 out of 10 for me. |m|
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12.05.2010 - 23:50
Lord_Regnier

Written by Baz Anderson on 27.01.2007 at 22:50

over the years i have moved away from Blind Guardian rather gradually - but this album still is as strong as anything..
very good album indeed. just what metal is supposed to be like
i would probably rank this album as one of my favorite Blind Guardian albums now - rather then before when it would have been lower down.
it has certainly withstood the test of time


I prefer this album by far to anything BG released since NIME.

Lots of people complain about the production but give me this kind of raw production over their current multi-layered artificial and mock progressive sound any day.
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"Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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12.05.2010 - 23:53
Baz Anderson

Written by Lord_Regnier on 12.05.2010 at 23:50

I prefer this album by far to anything BG released since NIME.

Hahaha, I probably haven't listened to it again since I wrote that three and a half years ago.
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13.05.2010 - 17:22
Rating: 10
thewall30

Good review, but I don't see how "The Martyr" is that bad of a song, its got similiar song structure as the others on the album, but anyways amazing album!
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22.07.2011 - 05:33
Rating: 10
Claydden

The Martyr is a great song!! The whole album is intense and the instrumentals are the perfect way to end it! Love Blind Guardian, and love this album! 10!
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17.08.2011 - 13:15
ErnilEnNaur
Account deleted
Quite an incredible debut this was and it's probably the best album they released until they got to Somwhere Far Beyond.
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17.08.2011 - 13:15
ErnilEnNaur
Account deleted
Quite an incredible debut this was and it's probably the best album they released until they got to Somwhere Far Beyond.
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27.09.2016 - 23:45
Rating: 10
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Best song run for a night and same time finally some says truth its speed metal !!!!
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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