Blind Guardian, Beyond the red mirror

On the first few listens, this album seemed pretty disappointing. The guitar solos were there, the orchestra was there, the choirs were there, Hansi was there... it was Blind Guardian alright, but still something was missing. After more listens, I can say that what’s missing is the catchiness and maybe a hook song like Mirror Mirror or Imaginations from the other side, but once you give it time and really get into it, it’s every bit as good as the previous albums. In fact, the more I listen to it, the more fascinated I become. To be honest, I wrote a review that I didn’t get a chance to post and in the meantime I listened to the album again and decided that review didn’t do it justice, that this is a hundred times better than what I originally wrote and I made another one. That’s how much of a grower this is.