We waited a long time in order to get a new album of the Guardians – exactly four years without their brilliant music. Was it worth the wait? Just like everytime Blind Guardian release something, the answer to the question is difficult and requires a lot of album spins, because the rest would seem unappropriate and not serious one bit, considering the diversity of their works. “At the Edge of Time” is full with complex sound, multi-layered guitar effects and just about everything that allows the band to continue their journey on the road to the perfect symbiosis between their ambitious compositional decisions and the melodic speed metal which turned into their trademark over the years.

The 9 min. long opener “Sacred Worlds” has nothing to do with its first version which Blind Guardian played live on a local concert about a year ago. Here, the song begins with a long intro, resembling film score music merging into an epic and utterly melodic composition with one hell of an awesome chorus. This piece, along with the closing theme “Wheel of Time” is a semi-continuation of the band’s intention to include orchestral arrangements which started in “And Then There Was Silence” from the opus “A Night at the Opera”. Thing is, I really prefer the original version over the symphonic one - would've given up the orchestra work for more tempo, it seems. The next trio is much more hit-orriented and direct: “Tanelorn (Into the Void)” and my favorite “Ride into Obsession” are bound to be favoured by the fans of the “Imaginations...” era, while “Road of No Release” is a more logical successor of the musical direction of “A Twist in the Myth”. “Ride into Obsession” got under my skin because of the uncommon for BG rhythm section and the thick, vigorous sound.

While we’re on it, it'll be good to take a note on the great sound of the drums – the entire production is once again on a very high level, to say the least. After that three-songs-long attack, the tempo gets tranquilized with “Curse My Name” which has beautiful Irish elements and which actually is a direct conceptual follower of the classic “The Bard’s Song”. For all I know, that's a special Guardian trademark - we got "In the Forest", "A Past and Future Secret", "Skalds and Shadows", now "Curse My Name" and I fall for their little trick everytime. In “Valkyries” and “Control the Divine” the rhythm is raised once again and while the first has a varied, loaded with different sounds musical structure with a lot of choral vocals and epic mood, “Control the Divine” is a fairly oldschool track, but while reading this cliché you shouldn’t imagine your favorite song from the late 80’s but pure metal, transferring that cherished by many fans atmosphere into the year of 2010. Blind Guardian started their quest into the progressive metal universe a long time ago, but namely in songs such as “Control the Divine” and the single “A Voice in the Dark” they successfully manage to shake off the pretentiousness of the sound, achieving their goal quite spontaneously and in an original manner. Actually, “A Voice in the Dark”, just like “Ride into Obsession”, undoubtedly carry along the spirit of “Imaginations…”, provoking a smile of joy under the sound of those favorite multi-recordedly layed down solo guitars of Andre Olbrich. As always, I can’t help but congratulate Hansi for his inspired performance in each track; he finally managed to fulfill his personal dream and write a tribute to the great “Wheel of Time” fantasy epos – the homonymous closing song puts an end to one of the most varied and enriched from a listener’s point of view albums of the Guardians. Heavily melodic, with a lot symphonic interludes and full with Eastern parts, “The Wheel…” is the inevitable culmination itself; if there was ever something negative I found in any of the previous tracks, this single song makes me forget it all, get done with the review already and just listen again to one of the major grand hits the band recorded recently. Actually, the arrangement of the song was originally written by Hansi and Andre for the upcoming orchestral album based on "Lord of the Rings" (which will hardly see the light of day until 2013, as Marcus told me in an interview these days). Nonetheless it's cool to get a glimpse in that side of BG and to know what to expect, at least as a rough plan.

So in all we got a Guardian album with many links to the past of the band along with the most "progressive" touch in the side of the band until now and maybe the least catchy of all their works, but BG of all people know how to mix everything well so in the end it's not so much of a trouble. To cut it short, “At the Edge of Time” is a record which needs mostly “time” to get to the “edge”, therefore I recommend to listen carefully minimum 10 times in order to rationalize at least a considerable part of “what the hell do the band want to say with this album”. All I can say on this stage is that the album will hardly disappoint fans of each period of the musical development of Blind Guardian and might just turn into the next step towards their recognition among the ranks of the top metal bands in a universal scale. Though, with all due respect, it will never turn into a milestone and (personally for me) will not ever surpass "Imaginations"/"Nightfall", it's a nice excercise after "A Twist in The Myth" with several hints on what to expect from the future.

Highlights: "Ride into Obsession", "Wheel of Time", "Curse My Name", "A Voice in the Dark".