German unstoppable power metal force BLIND GUARDIAN will release their new album Beyond the Red Mirror on February 3, 2015 via Nuclear Blast.
Four and a half years in the making, the follow-up to 2010’s At The Edge Of Time was recorded at Twilight Hall Studio in Grefrath, Germany and produced by Charlie Bauerfeind (SAXON, HAMMERFALL, HELLOWEEN). The album showcases BLIND GUARDIAN’s collaborative work with three different classical choirs: one from the Czech Republic (Prague), one from Hungary (Budapest), and one from the United States (Boston). Two grand orchestras — each featuring 90 musicians — also lend their brilliant talents to the new recordings with absolutely spellbinding results.
Transporting listeners via a mysteriously powerful red mirror into an otherworldly dimension that includes tyrants, gods, and the Holy Grail, the ten songs comprising Beyond The Red Mirror’s story lines revolve around the young protagonist we first met twenty years ago in the 1995 tracks “Bright Eyes” and “And The Story Ends”.
“A story between science fiction and fantasy,” explains BLIND GUARDIAN vocalist and lyricist Hansi Kürsch. “The story begins with our 1995 album, Imaginations From The Other Side. The two worlds described therein have changed dramatically for the worse since then. While there used to be several passages between the worlds, there is only one gate left now: The Red Mirror. It has to be found at any cost.”
Asked to describe the band’s guiding principles for the creation of this new release, BLIND GUARDIAN guitarist André Olbrich shares: “We want to surprise and impress with our music. Nowadays, music tends to be arbitrary and predictable. But we want to keep developing our music.”
Opening with a tidal wave of surging emotion courtesy of a spine-tingling choir Beyond The Red Mirror unleashes its first gem, “Ninth Wave”, a consciousness-expanding palette of landscapes and moods bearing the message of an urgent mission still seeking resolution. Closing with an explosion of heroic harmonies and choral glories with a nine-and-a-half minute, self-contained saga, “Grand Parade” (called “the best song we have ever written” by Olbrich), the grandiose, uplifting, and ingenious storytelling in Beyond The Red Mirror is guaranteed to leave you breathless.
Come 2015, you will soon experience why BLIND GUARDIAN are so influential in their genre and without equal in the pantheon of heavy metal music. Featuring artwork by longtime collaborator Felipe Machado, Beyond The Red Mirror will be available in the following formats:
* Jewel Case (10 songs)
* Limited Edition Digibook (11 songs)
* Double LP gatefold vinyl (11 songs)
* Earbook (12 songs plus illustrations, photos, and liner notes)
* NB-Mailorder-Earbook (12 songs plus illustrations, photos, liner notes + bonus 10″)
Beyond The Red Mirror track listing:
1. Ninth Wave
2. Twilight Of The Gods
3. Prophecies
4. At The Edge Of Time
5. Ashes Of Eternity
6. Distant Memories (bonus track on limited editions + vinyl)
7. Holy Grail
8. The Throne
9. Sacred Mind
10. Miracle Machine
11. Grand Parade
Hansi calls the album’s first single, “Twilight Of The Gods”, “a neck breaker… the pure definition of all that the band stands for: it is innovative, melodic and brutal.” The mini-CD single includes two live tracks recorded at 2011’s Wacken Open Air festival in Germany and can be pre-ordered as a digi-pak or in blue or white vinyl.
