Their collaboration hit the metal scene like a bomb at the beginning of the millennium. And in hardly any other side project were the trademarks of the main bands so clearly visible from the very first second as in Demons & Wizards, the playground of Blind Guardian singer Hansi Kürsch and Iced Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer, which is entering the third round with the current album "III". "Yes, you simply cannot deny this fact", laughs Kürsch in the interview. "Jon has a very concise guitar style, and the same goes for my vocals. It's just our musical character and also our craft, and you can't simply subtract that. However, I find the symbiosis that arises from it very special. Demons & Wizards, for example, offers me much more room for singing, so that my approach is also changing
For over 20 years the phantom of Blind Guardian's orchestral album has been haunting the metal scene. Announced again and again, postponed again and again, "Legacy Of The Dark Lands" is now not only the most ambitious composition project ever undertaken by metal musicians in Germany, but also the (temporary) logical endpoint of a development already hinted at on an early album like "Somewhere Far Beyond" (1992). We spoke with the two makers Hansi Kürsch and André Olbrich.
eclipsed: Were there moments in the last 20 years when you lost interest in this mammoth company or ran out of patience?
While singer Hansi Kürsch is busy with vocal recordings in the studio (and still provides us with a fantasy top 5 list), guitarist André Olbrich talks to us about the logistical challenges of the double live CD "Live Beyond The Spheres" and the long-awaited orchestral album. Beyond that he goes with us on trace search for a genre called Fantasy Metal.
eclipsed: You have put a lot of effort into "Live Beyond The Spheres"..
STEVEN WILSON - Frei, that means alone
two years ago Steven Wilson climbed the Prog-Olymp with his solo work "The Raven That Refused To Sing". The active Englishman has received exuberant criticism across the scene. Now he lays with "Hand. Cannot. Erase." A work as ambitious and complex as its predecessor. However, the bar is high. If and how Steven Wilson wants to overcome them and which direction he takes, he tells in a big interview.
GOV'T MULE - Pink Floyd and all the others
Also with "Beyond The Red Mirror" Blind Guardian remind us of "Imaginations From The Other Side" and "Nightfall In Middle Earth". Album number 10 of the fantasy metal band can clearly be identified as the successor of "At The Edge Of Time". But the Krefelder wouldn't be Germany's most creative power metal band if they didn't present new facets of their impressive musicality again this time.
Four years after "At The Edge Of Time" Blind Guardian are back in an impressive way. Once again the Krefelder Quartett inspires with demanding, partly orchestral compositions, which despite the density of detail appear massive and crystal clear. This multi-layered work was also created in the band's own Twilight Hall Studios in Grefrath; it was produced by Charlie Bauerfeind. Musically and lyrically the group continues the great moments of their career. eclipsed spoke with singer/lyricist Hansi Kürsch and guitarist André Olbrich in the legendary studio kitchen.
eclipsed: Hansi, André, despite the immense density of details you let it crash again on "Beyond The Red Mirror". Your drummer Frederik Ehmke has to do some hard work.
