Life Shaping Album # 5 Nightfall in Middle Earth - Blind Guardian

I had been searching for this kind of music since I could remember. I didn´t know how to explain or describe what I wanted to hear, but Blind Guardian, and this album especifically was meaningful in many different levels.

I have always been interested in Medieval times... whether in movies, cartoons or art, I was always attracted to this period. The cheesy image of a warrior somewhere in the woods playing an ancient string instrument in front of a fire next to his sword has always been appealing! jajajaja I know it´s corny but I really like that kind of stuff, what can I say...

Anyways I always wanted to hear the music that I thought would be in the backround of those times, but with contemporary instruments. In 2000 I started to become obsessed with author J.R.R Tolkien and his book The Hobbit. I started the book and a few days later I met the biggest Dream Theater fan I know who was also obsessed with Tolkien. We started talking and I asked him if he knew any bands that ¨sounded¨ like the books. The following day he let me borrow Nightfall in Middle Earth, which was based on Tolkien´s ¨Bible¨ The Silmarillion and dedicated to the author.

I got to my car and played it on my way back to my house. I was stuck in traffic, the one and only time I was HAPPY to be in traffic, listening to this. It was my first taste of power metal... a more theatrical and ¨bigger¨ sound than anything i had heard. I could imagine myself in freaking Middle-Earth, fighting orcs, jajajajjaja it was so cool! jajajja. I remember hearing the track Nightfall, right at sunset.... pretty fitting.

The guitars sound like horn lines in some fanfare, the lyrics are magical, the drums sound HUGE and the choruses are as powerful as you could imagine. All their albums kick ass, but this one takes the cake in my opinion. Along with Helloween´s Keeper of the Seven Keys II, Angra´s Angels Cry, and Gamma Ray´s Land of the Free , it´s the must have speed and power metal album...

¨Never trust the Northern winds, Never turn your back on friends¨