Blind Guardian is a German Power Metal band. While their sound originally leaned toward speed metal, their later albums have become the standard for modern progressive rock.

The band started in 1984 as “Lucifer’s Heritage,” changing their name to “Blind Guardian” in honor of Fates Warning’s “Awaken The Guardian” album. They did this upon signing their first record contract hoping it would distance them from Satanism and Black Metal.

Blind Guardian’s first albums mixed speed and thrash metal, but from then on they shifted more toward progressive rock. Their second album, “Follow The Blind,” broke into the Japanese import charts and by the time they released their third album the band had garnered enough of a following in Europe and Japan for major labels to take interest.

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Two friends, Hansi Kursch from the Blind Guardian, and Iced Earth guitarist John Shaffer decided in 1998 to start a a new project. Demons and wizards represent a mixture of rough, heavy, palm muted Iced Earth riffs and a bit softer and more layered Blind Guardian style. Shaffler is composing all the music, while Hansi writes fantasy inspired lyrics.

They have released 2 albums so far, a self titled “Demons & wizards” was released in 2000. Even though it was critically well accepted, it achieved moderate commercial success, mostly thanks to the Iced Earth and Blind Guardian fan base. Most noted song was “Fiddler on the green” whitch was featured on the cover. It’s a balade about a mystical figure of death witch makes a mistake taking a child life and then tries to repair the damage by taking it’s soulmate to the afterlife. Hansi was inspiered for this song when he saw two car accidence in a short time in whicih a young boy and a girl died.

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Disturbed has spent the last ten years enjoying the kind of mainstream success that most bands can only dream about. The band has sold more than 11 million albums since its formation, and their songs can be heard in movies, video games, and rock stations around the world. The band has certainly had a bit of a charmed career – their very first album reached number 29 on Billboard charts and turned them into bonafide rock stars.

The nu-metal tale of Disturbed begins in Chicago, during the mid-90s. Guitarist Dan Donegan, bassist Steve Kmak, and drummer Mike Wengren were all in a band called Brawl, which would prove to be rather short-lived. Brawl’s vocalist left, and a timely ad in the Illinois Examiner brought David Draiman to the attention of the three remaining members.

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Hammerfall is a Swedish power metal band, formed in 1993 by Oscar Dronjak. Their first full album “Glory to the brave” was released in 1997. It was very well accepted, as it brought new modern, melodic and positive sound to the metal.

Their mascot – a knight named Hector appears an all album covers. Most of the songs are very mystical and quite hard to understand the true meaning. They changed a lot of band members – Dronjak (founder and a guitarist) and Joacim Cans (lead vocals) are the only members that appear on all albums. They recorded total of 7 albums. Last album “No Sacrifice, No Victory”, was released in 2009.

Blind Guardian has released a new album called “At the edge of time”. It is, as always, a mixture of styles, so you will be able to find some songs that sound more like old speed-thrash metal Blind Guardian, but also some progressive and modern songs.

Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” and George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” had a lot of influence on this album especially in songs like “War of the Thrones”, “A Voice in the Dark” and “Tanelorn”. The album peaked at 2nd position in germany and 18th position in Finnish album charts. You can hear some excerpts from album in the youtube video below, or listen to 3 full length track on Blind Guardian web page.

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