IMAGINATIONS FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Imaginations from the Other Side ? 1995 (2.5/5) 9 ? Best Song: Bright Eyes Lo and behold, the band embraces power-prog with a vengeance. I'll assume all you Blind Guardian fans out there will love anything they release and totally ignore how you'd might as well just listen to the same Cd again and again and you'd be granted the same overall effect ? mild invigoration. It's what they're selling you teenage pansies. Before I get too far entrenched in berating a bunch of folks, I'll tell you what makes this different from the last album (it's actually really hard to see the differences, gotta have magic ears). Imaginations from the Other Side keeps with the American power-prog movement much too closely to be of any note by itself. The songs are slower, but are slothfully long. Even if they're barely over 4 minutes, I don't see need for any track to be longer than two. More acoustic breaks flourish here or there, but they don't do anything but frustrate you into wishing they'd either done an entre folk rock album or cut the silly grandpa guitars from the mix altogether. Hansi is slowly getting better at singing, which is great on my nerves because I'd gotten to the limit of taking his grating tonelessness. He's still no Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson (his spiritual grandfathers). I honestly enjoy the band when they're mixing electric metal with acoustic folk, I really like that material. So 'Mordred's Song' was good fun, and their big hit 'Bright Eyes' is the first song by them that has lasting power. I also think 'Anoter Holy War' works well within the context. Gee, if they'd been smart enough to weed out everything else, this would've been a great little three song EP.