BLIND GUARDIAN: Update on the Orchestra CD!

For many years, the members of BLIND GUARDIAN talk about it – finally lead singer Hansi Kürsch gives a certain update about it: the orchestral CD! Hansi published the ...

For many years, the members of BLIND GUARDIAN talk about it – finally lead singer Hansi Kürsch gives a certain update about it: the orchestral CD! Hansi published the following news on their homepage:

Hi there,

…first a late, but still fresh, Happy New Year to everyone. After getting rid of some bonus pounds gained over the last few months due to live abstinence we are now getting ready for a very busy and exciting year of creativity and efficiency. Wishful thinking, you think? Blasphemy, I would reply! As most of you may have recognized, we have been busy all during 2012 with some additional touring activity and some extra missions, such as the completion of , which is a great legacy. It features all of our material from the Virgin era in a new and accurate framework, beautifully designed by Felipe Machado. The whole box offers a great insight about that particular part of our career. Even though it took us more time than expected, we are really pleased with the final result. It’s something we are really proud of and something which you hopefully are going to enjoy as much as we do. I just got my sample yesterday, and am really blown away.

This, of course, has not been the only thing we were doing during the last year. For the sake of fun and leisure we were working on new stuff and progressed far quicker than we would have expected. Not that this means a lot in the generous production time frame of Blind Guardian. But it might secure a late 2014 release for at least one BG album. As you may have read in interviews we are intending to bring a long story to a well deserved and hopefully happy end. As already announced with A Twist in the Myth and also with At the Edge of Time, apart from a regular album there finally will also be the release of the orchestral album. Why am I so sure about not being wrong again this time? I have no idea. Nothing new here, one could say.

The difference might be that throughout the last 18 months we have recorded 7 songs in Prague. There probably is a handful of additional songs to record during this year, but they are also already finalized with regard to composition. In theory we do not need any further songs for this album but ideas simply seem to flow endlessly… The reason why this album is still far from being released is partly based on the regular album, which we definitely would like to release first. At this point in time I am in a very tricky situation. How to continue from here? I think it is probably easiest to simply continue by telling you something about the regular album since this would be next anyway. Keep in mind that “next” is relative!

Well, we have started working on four songs and already were able to finish two songs musically. The working titles are “Encrypted Time” (I think this title is inspired by André’s passion for World of Warcraft or so – I can only guess…) and “The Ocean” (here, André has been inspired by my undefined mumbling in the song). “Encrypted Time” is a modern speed metal song with some tribal aspects and some 70′s inspirations, while “The Ocean” is a very progressive (this time I talk about ELP meets Savatage art rock when I say progressive) orchestra dominated song which will give you a further glimpse of what to expect from the orchestral album. I am clueless about the right story board for “Encrypted Time” but “The Ocean” could be used as a theme opener for the orchestral project. We will see… The other four songs seem to turn out very special and obviously very different. Working titles: “The Irish Hill”, “Prophecies”, “Soundtrack 2″ and “Midtempo Song”. I cannot tell you exactly about how many times we have had a song over the years which was first called “Midtempo Song”. I am pretty sure we are not the only band abusing this spectacular title over and over again. Thank God, the title is not copyright protect