BATTALIONS OF FEAR

Except for the standard heavy metal track "Run For The Night" (not totally bad, but not progressive or relevant enough to rate as a good track here), Blind Guardian's debut, what came from the ashes of Lucicer's Heritage, a youth speed/power metal, developed into a truely classic for the genre, and it could be really interesting to listen to Battalions of Fear analizing it's progressive side, since the band had no interest in writing progressive rock yet (I think so). Actually, this album is very different than Blind Guardian major stuff, this is pure metal oriented. Lucifer's Heritage changed their name to Blind Guardian looking forward to their fans: they won't be found beside black metal and lyrically and conceptually "extreme" music including satanic themes, since their music focus on medieval tales, rpg, Tolkien and mythical literature. That's a good start for a bunch of teenagers. But the band weren't so mature as you think they were. They used to get drunk inside the studios, and according to the band, some of them used to know very well the floor's carpet after a little vomit.

But if you are expecting a common heavy metal from their darkest days, you are totally wrong. Actually, even trying to sound like Iron Maiden, these guys did an awesome job. They were the pioneers of Tolkien-oriented metal, following the steps of Camel suites like Nimrodel/The Procession/The White Rider. Somehow better than what you will get from three guitars playing Fear of The Dark. Majesty, exceeding the line of seven minutes, is the album opener. The track starts with a merry-go-round music, suddenly broken by a thunder, and then comes the first guitar riff. The track is full of different musical phrases and passages, there's nothing actually regular in the track, or riff sequences looping. When a riff or chorus is repeated, it almost never appears in the same obvious place. That's a trademark of Blind Guardian, and one of the facts which made them progressive, even in the early ways. The whole album took the same vein, and the vocal melodies are pretty catchy for me.

Battalions of Fear recording is raw, not as any Blind Guardian highly rated album. Hansi vocals are not professional yet. I mean, it has some flaws. These kind of details could easily withdrawn this album from the list of many. Together with the fact that their songwriting are "epic" and more complex than almost every raw teenager heavy metal band, the album is easily hard listening even for Blind Guardian fanatics. I "follow the blind" since their past times, and I myself had sort of difficulty to swallow this one. But this is what makes the music fun: the secrets hidden within an album that you had in your own hands, but didn't dug the treasure X. Music has no map to treasures. So I keep digging and finding new stuff, even in the apparently worst albums, changing my view from time to time.

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