Imagine you’re a Greek soldier marching into battle in the front row of a phalanx. Or an Egyptian woman putting on makeup before attending an evening party with your husband. Or a Celtic monk scurrying away with the Book of Kells during a Viking invasion. Welcome to the other side of history, the 99% of ordinary people whose names don’t make it into the history books—but whose lives are no less fascinating than the great leaders whose names we all know.
Blind Guardian emerged from western Germany in the mid-'80s with a style that fused gothic- and fantasy-tinged European power metal with the velocity and technical precision of speed metal. Since debuting in 1988 with the thrashy and raw Battalions of Fear, the band has become an institution in power, progressive, and neo-classical metal circles, delivering genre classics Nightfall in Middle-Earth (1998), A Night at the Opera (2002), and A Twist in the Myth (2006), plus orchestral works such as Legacy of the Dark Lands (2019) that skillfully pair fantastical narratives with ace musicianship.
Imaginations from the Other Side is the fifth studio album by Blind Guardian that was released in 1995. The atmosphere of this album is darker in comparison to their earlier works, such as Battalions of Fear, which had a relatively light tone. This album also marks the first since Battalions of Fear in which Kai Hansen (Gamma Ray) did not guest on vocals or guitar, and the last album to feature vocalist Hansi Kürsch as bassist. It was also their first album to spawn off any singles, in the form of "A Past and Future Secret" and "Bright Eyes". It was remastered and re-released on 15 June 2007