A Night at the Opera

Blind Guardian

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 19, 2002)
• Original Release Date: March 19, 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Century Media
• ASIN: B000062Y98
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #36,952 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Track Listings

1. Precious Jerusalem

2. Battlefield

3. Under The Ice

4. Sadly Sings Destiny

5. The Maiden and The Minstrel Knight

6. Wait For An Answer

7. The Soulforged

8. Age Of False Innocence

9. Punishment Divine

10. And Then There Was Silence

11. Mies Del Dolor

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This monumental album was in the writing stages for over two years and the band spent the better part of 2001 in the studio recording it. Featuring some of the most majestic and ambitious metal compositions ever recorded. Includes the bonus track 'Mies Del Dolor' not available on the import version. 2002.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, the greatest band out there is back!! :-), March 20, 2002

By	Gene Beck (Louisville, KY, USA) - See all my reviews

Oh dear Lord, it's finally here. The most beautiful album released by anyone in years upon years, if ever. The wait has been rediculous, but as with most good things, it was worth it. The wait for this album was also with good reason. Just listen to the production, the choirs, and insane amount of guitar layering and complicated songwriting. Sure, this is common with Blind Guardian, but they've finally out-done themselves, I believe. Read on to see one forever-committed fan's analysis of this masterpiece of operatic metal brilliance.

Let's start with the song by song review now...

Precious Jerusalem - Heavy, fast, and very cool vocals. A departure for Guardian with the more eastern feel, but an incredible way to start the album, especially with the very fast rhythm and singing about 50 seconds in. Wow. (10/10)

Battlefield - A great clean intro to this gets you anticipating the chaos that awaits. Great bass drumming throughout, good guitar leads, and a bridge and faster part that make you just want to, I don't know, go crazy. Great song. (10/10)

Under The Ice - Trippy intro, again with an eastern feel throughout the song. Back to the good old dark lyrical style. Great dark lyrics, even. A very singable chorus (if you can hit those higher notes). Great song, very emotional. (10/10)

Sadly Sings Destiny - Incredibly cool and bizarre intro to this one. The most upbeat track on the album, but with aggressive singing throughout the verses. It's a departure, and one of the best songs on the album. The lyrics are obscurely uplifting, and make you feel good. It's a fun song, with great instrumentals. Definitely a classic. (11/10)

The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight - Much slower than the rest so far, and very emotional. Just to keep you on your toes, it kicks in hard at about 2 minutes, still keeping that same heartfelt emotion. Great use of orchestration, choir vocals, and a great guitar solo. Very singable in the car, too. :-) (10/10)

Wait For An Answer - The most uplifting song on the album lyrically. Trashes on "spreading disease", "Ignorance", and "Hate like a fowl cancer." It can be interpreted in many ways, including the tragedy of 9/11, or as loosely as racism. Musically it's very good and very powerful, VERY powerful. Has a killer groove to it, too. It's only problem is that it's somehow not very catchy at first, but it really grows on you, and with great (and I mean GREAT) instrumentals. (10/10)

The Soulforged - Based on Dragonlance, this one is heavy, fast, and upbeat. Incredibly catchy chorus, and I mean incredibly catchy. Again, great guitar work, as Andre and Marcus(Magnus?) are so consistent with. Another of my favorites, and that's all there is to it. (11/10)

Age Of False Innocence - The opening piano reminds you a bit of "The Eldar" from Nightfall In Middle-Earth with added orchestration, but it gets a lot more aggressive, a lot faster. Another emotional one, but heavier than "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight." It's really a great song with more clean guitar than the rest of the CD, along with great leads. Andre Olbrich never ceases to amaze me with his unique solos. He uses scales like I've never seen, and they're amazing. (10/10)

Punishment Divine - Awesome. Incredible lyrics, great vocal lines, blistering leads, and what I believe to be the heaviest song on the album. This one gets you going in ways you have to hear to believe, and it's an unstoppable juggernaut reminiscent of tracks like "I'm Alive" and "Another Holy War" from Imagination From The Other Side. Very cool song. (10/10)

And Then There Was Silence - Now this one is interesting. It's the longest song that Blind Guardian have ever done, and it's musically probably also the best. It's over 14 minutes long, and has probably some of the catchiest choruses and most powerful verses on the album, but it takes quite a few listens to appreciate all of them to the fullest. This one also boasts the least amount of lead guitar on the cd. Almost all the power is in the rhythm guitars, Hansi's incredible vocals, and and great orchestration. The climax of the whole thing comes at around the 9-10 minute mark, and it kind of just winds down from there. One of the greatest epics written, save perhaps Maiden's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Absolutely incredible, but we're not through yet.... (11/10)

Mies Del Dolor - ... for there's still one more! The Spanish version of Harvest Of Sorrow(which is found in English on the And Then There Was Silence single), finishes off this musical journey in a very mellow and beautiful way. Marcus' accoustics are great, and Hansi's Spanish vocals sound just a good.

Truly my favorite album in my collection of over 300. It beat Gamma Ray's No World Order and their own N.I.M.E. and I.F.T.O.S. into the ground to take the top spot in my mind, and it'll be a few weeks probably before I listen to anything else. So, get out your card or your keys and get this album!!!! Cheers!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is Blind Guardian? What a surprise, March 3, 2003

By	NecroVMX (Milford, PA) - See all my reviews

My first introduction to this album was before it's release, when a freind gave me a link to the mp3 download of "Battlefield" off of century media's website. My first reaction was poor, thinking it disapointing for a Blind Guradian song. It seemed to noisy, incessantly busy.

After spending some time rotating on my play list, I began to like this song, even love it. What before seemed busy noise became incredibally progressive power metal in my mind, with a level of complexity never before reached by Blind Guardian.

The album, after I purchased it, proved to be much the same. The title (not just one of many sly references to other musicians, in this case queen) it apropos. A night at the opera indeed! If you close your eyes while listening you could almost see Hansi and company acting out the stories they sing, ranging from bible stories to the Trojan War.

Opening with the clashy (but not thrashy) Precious Jerusalem and ending with the incrediblaly epic And Then There Was Silence, the album does not let up for a minute. Gone are the sorrowfull dirges and anthems of Nightfall in Middle Earth, the growly gutteral Power Metal of Tales from the Twilight World and the bands earlier Power/Thrash hybrid. It seems that while sticking to Power Metal the band has switched secondary genres many times, from Trash to borderline Death to their more popular midevil sound to something so prog that it's almost hard to still label them as Power Metal. But hearing the soaring operettics and clashy choruses you realize that Blind Guardian, while realizing the potentialities of overlapping lyrics, backgorund choirs and incredibaly fast insturmentation, is still a Power Metal band at heart, heard in the intro to The Maiden and the Minstrel Night, to the many verses of And Then There Was Silence and the bands thematic aproach.

The album does not have any real slow parts, the band only taking momentary breaks from their musical barrage in the intro to The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight and some appropriately low key, but still rousing parts in And Then There Was Silence. Their old tricks still hold true when Hansi sings prancinly in Battlefield and Silence, his wails barraging you over complex layers of vocals.

And let us not forget the bonus track, or tracks as I should say, as depending on what country your disc comes from, you'll get a different track. They are all the same song, just sung in many different languages, the one I have, Mies Del Dolor is in spanish. After the exhausting run of this album, this mix of celtic and latin sounding guitar work over Hansi's passionate singing is just the perfect thing to unwind you and still rouse you at the end of this fine collection of songs.

My reccomendation to you is to buy this album, and listen to it many times, even if it rubs you the wrong way at first. As complexities become unwound in your mind, the beauty of Blind Guardian's A Night At The Opera is unveiled.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blind Guardian does indeed pen a masterpiece, May 4, 2002

By	Mark R. Guglielmo "markgugs" (Wood Ridge, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Let's get one thing straight: This is Metal. Gloriously orchestrated, bombastic at times, gorgeously lilting at others, but metal through and through. There are many fans of the Bards out there who hearken and long for the days of old, the speed metal German madness made famous (overseas, at least) by Hansi and company during the 90s.

Hey, I loved it too. In the year+ now that I've discovered, enjoyed and thoroughly digested the Guardians' catalog, I can say with complete honesty and fervor that A Night At The Opera is their shining moment. The disc cover says their the "most musically significant band since Iron Maiden." They might very well be. Remember the time when 'Run to the Hills' was on MTV heavy rotation? Blind Guardian can have that impact.

Musically, this album is patterned not far from Queen's heyday (when they realized their talents and just peaked), coincidentally (?) with the breakthrough launch of their own 'At Night At The Opera." Like that album, this is chock full of epic, grandiose music. And moreso than ever, Hansi Kursch's songwriting ability has truly blossomed. The 1-2 punch of "Precious Jerusalem" and "Battlefied" are all you need to know that the Bards are not shedding their metal skin. I mean, just listen to the frantic "Risin' up from the heart of the desert / Risin' up for Jerusalem..." coupled with the warlike, military drum madness provided by Thomas Stauch. It's un-believable! "Battlefield" draws subtly disguised comparison to E.L.O. believe it or not. Listen to the superbly crafted bridge/chorus if you don't remember (or don't believe me). I for one cannot freaking wait to fly to Atlanta for their first concert ever on North American soil! Simply thinking of the entire concert hall belting out "There on the battlefield he stands / Down on the battlefield he's lost / And on the battlefield it ends" - it's going to be, well, epic.

The album never lets up, and never loses focus or momentum. Song after song, Blind Guardian do not descend the mountain it took more than a decade to summmit. With more variety on this disc than the average metal band has in their entire catalog, there is surely something here to please any and all fans of this legendary band, and convert quite a few new fans as well, I'm certain. The album is a masterpiece. Do yourself a favor and take the plunge so you don't miss what's been crafted here.