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With Blind Guardian's new album coming out very soon, it was only right they released a single to give the fans a little taste of what is to come on the new album A Twist In The Myth. If you flash back to 2002 when A Night At The Opera was released you may remember the band offered up the 14 minute epic single "And Then Their Was Silence" as a precursor for that forthcoming album. The reason I bring that up is because at that time, the single provided a good indication of what A Night At The Opera was all about: epic, symphonic, well produced, multi layered songs. Here we are now four years later and a new B.G. single "Fly" has been released. Well while "Fly" is not a 14 minute epic (actually clocks in at 5:45) it does seem to maintain and even grow upon many tendencies found on the previous record. The songwriting abilities of the band at this point are extremely fine tuned and this is obvious upon first listen. With the speed metal days apparently in the past, "Fly" continues the mid-tempo pace established on the last record. While maybe not as bombastic as anything off of A Night At The Opera, the song still retains a very epic feeling, with some of those trademark B.G. harmonies. Hansi's vocals have never sounded better in my opinion and he also sounds very inspired with the lyrical content, which was based on the movie Finding Neverland
The second song "Skalds and Shadows" is more of a traditional B.G affair with acoustic guitars and a Lord Of The Rings feel to it. Quite comparable to such ballads as "Bard's Song" or "A Past And Future Secret", the version found here will only be available on this single. Lastly we have a cover of the classic Iron Butterfly song "In A Gadda Da Vida". Blind Guardian has always shown a great diversity in their cover songs over the years, with covers ranging from Beach Boys (Barbara Ann) to NWOBHM stalwarts Satan. (Trial By Fire). The Iron Butterfly classic seems to be an interesting choice for the band, as this is a song that has been covered by many others in the past. This version though is still quite enjoyable and ends this disc on a high note.
It is always a difficult task to grade one of these CD "singles". On one hand you have some new quality tunes from one of the top metal bands in the world. Yet there are only a total of 3 songs on here and with the new album coming out soon this makes it hard to recommend when you may just want to purchase the album itself. Aside from collectors and the hard core fans (who obviously own this already no doubt) those who enjoyed the last Blind Guardian album will still probably want to have this, while those who aren't keen on the new direction the guys have taken may want to wait and get the scoop on the main event.
| Tracklist |
| 1. Fly |
| 2. Skalds And Shadows |
| 3. In A Gadda Da Vida |
: 12.38
| Buy other Blind Guardian albums |
