Fly

by

Blind Guardian

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Here's my impressions of the single.

The first time I listened to it, I thought the song Fly had a Weird intro. I was like what the hell is making that scratchy noise? Then I got into the song, and I liked it as it got going. It has some very epic elements, but it is also very succinct. Not as elaborate as "And Then There Was Silence," but in many ways more understandable. The guitar solo I thought was one of Andre's best and most definable.

Then Skalds and Shadows came on and I was by this time fairly psyched to be blown away. I had read about this song being "in the tradition of 'Bards Song' and 'Past And Future Secret'," but I guess I was hoping for more. It's a good song by itself, but the problem is that it doesn't bring anything new to the table. That's why I really liked "Maiden/Minstrel Knight." It was entirely BG ballad, but at the same time it was completely different from any ballad they had done previously. Skalds and Shadows just doesn't differentiate itself from the BG ballad sound enough for me.

Inna Gadda Da Vida was a nice bonus. The riff was cool, but Hansi's vocals sounded a little weird. Like he was trying to be true to the original singer but couldn't do it.

Those were my first impressions of the single.

After several weeks of listening to Fly on and off I have changed my mind about a few things. Firstly, the song Fly is one of the best songs the band has ever done. It builds tension in just the right places and releases it like sex. The guitar solo is a thing of beauty in its initial simplicity and in building complexity. I still think the beginning is weird, but the rest of the song is so perfect that I say, who cares. Skalds and Shadows is still too much of a template song, though it stands alone as a beautiful ballad. Inna Gadda Da Vida has grown on me. What at first seemed like bad vocals now seem to be exactly what they were intended to be. A mixture of Iron Butterfly and Blind Guardian.

There are a lot of people who are going to say "this isn't Blind Guardian" simply because while the band are maturing and developing a more complex style, these "naysayers" have stayed behind in the dust. These are the same people who think Batallions of Fear was Blind Guardian's finest work, and who also think Metallica is the greatest metal band of all time. So unless you think Batallions was the band's best album (raises eyebrows), or Metallica the greatest thing since sliced bread (smiles), pay these naysayers no heed. If you want Blind Guardian to "return to their roots," then think again. This has been done before, and it's never worked out. Remember Iron Maiden's "No Prayer For The Dying"? It was exactly a return to Maiden's roots, and it tanked. The wonderful thing about Blind Guardian is that they have improved from each of their albums to the next, and this single, Fly, is a perfect example of how the band continue to broaden and improve their music. "Just when you think they couldn't get any better" is a phrase not uncommon among Blind Guardian fans, and there's a reason for that.

I am really suprised that any long time BG fan can like the new direction of the band. I find it insulting that their descent into cheesey rock meets corny fantasy movie soundtrack is being billed as "growth" and evolution". As a long time fan, I would really welcome that kind of change. For example I think the words "time" sorrow" "end" "away and "agony" should be banned from Hansi's lyrical toolbox. The guitar tones be played with in postive ways, different time signatures could be used, lyrical themes, different instruments added tastefully, such as a violin. I 'd like to see the band get heavier AND softer. Or not. Those are just examples.

But this new Guardian is not a growth, but a cheesey parody of their old material. "Dream in the shadows"? How is that new? That sounds like something that could have been on the last several albums by this band-with one important difference!

The flutes! Now flutes can be done tastefully, with some texture, as they were on Nightfall, but these sound absolutely corny. Blind Gurdian are better than bands like Rhapsody because they push the mystical as far as you can go without becoming a child's action figure or a unicorn poster in a 6 year old girl's bedroom. They also can write real lyrics, have real feeling and grittyness and heaviness that comes with applying slick production in the places where its needed for the bombastic effect all great epic metal requires, while at the same time stripping down elsewhere in the mix and delivering creativity at the gut level. But it seems they may have lost that now.

A horrible rock cover? They already did a whole album of those with forgotten tales, which not a single BG fan I know actually owns, but no one was offended by because it wasn't taken as serious.

The guitar riffage on fly sounds like straight up blues based rock, minus the soul-its almost like the music from a 90's tv car chase or something. And the vocals are low quality Alternative Rock from the same era.

Well, I know some true fans would like to see a return to the sound of Nightfall or earlier.

Not me.

I would like to see BG make a progression from that, but still be true to their best metal roots. They claim thats what this is. And some fans are sticking by it.

History will not buy that line, it never does.

This claim will evaporate amid the same sound as a million other bands "new directions" and "artistic growth" and other fatal slides into Crapdom that we all now look back on and laugh at. To me it sounds like they've actually gotten lazy and are resting on thier laurels, while introducing embaressing parlor tricks like dancy keyboards to gloss it over and then calling that growth. I think they are weak and out of steam, but, hey, they have already put out enough great albums and you cant always stay great forever.