Blind Guardians History
The band was originally formed in 1985, under the name Lucifer´s Heritage. They released two demos; "Symphonies Of Doom" (1985) wich wasn´t such a big hit, the other one though, "Battalions Of Fear", was very successful. After that they changed their name to Blind Guardian.
The four bards signed a contract with No Remorse and in 1988 released their debut album "Battalions of Fear", which resembled early Helloween, with producer Kalle Trapp (of Destruction, Drifter, Grinder, Paradox Fame). The following years (1989) they released their second album, "Follow The Blind", featuring appearances by formal Helloween-guitarist and present Gamma Ray-vocalist Kai Hansen. Appearances wich both included guitar-playing and some singing on the song "Valhalla" and "Hall Of The King".
When they released their third album, "Tales From The Twilight World", the German metal-quartet had made very great changes to their music. They had gone from raw speed-metal to a sound more melodic, offcourse the "speed" was still there, just listen to songs like "Goodbye My Friend" or "Welcome To Dying". This time they had, according to Hansi Kürsch who are the vocalist and bassist in the band, also spent more time on the lyrics. This album also was the first to feature cover painting by Andreas Marschall, the very talented German guy who makes the best covers of German metal albums.
In September 1991 the band were signed on Virgin, and the following year they released "Somewhere far Beyond". With the success of this album they reached a world-wide recognition, although later they were not happy (They didn't like their own Queen cover).
In 1993 "Tokyo Tales" was out. With this album they followed lots of other bands who chose Tokyo as the location of a concert album. In 1994 they broke up with their formal producer and chose Flemming Rasmussen, the guy behind some of the best Metallica albums.
In wasn´t until the release of their fifth album, "Imaginations From The Other Side", that the sound was to be greatly altered and taken to a higher level. Mixing the old speed-sound with a new, more orchestral sound showed to be a great success. The album is the band´s biggest success so far.
In 1996 the collection "The Forgotten Tales" was released, the album featured some covers, but also old, rerecorded BG-songs and a fantastic live-recording of the wonderful song "The Bard´s Song - In The Forest"...
When the bard's released their sixth full-length album this year, they showed that there is hardly no limit for their musical progress. Taking their music to yet a higher lever of complexity with "Nightfall in Middle Earth" must be one of the greatest events of german metal history.