Blind Guardian

I've got so much music in iTunes I've decided to give a listen to old Blind Guardian catalogue. It's not bad really. They have distinctive style. First two albums were just simple plain thrash metal then they added some of their Uriah Heep and Queen also some progressive rock influence to their thrash metal sounds. Their music definitely improved and more grandiose. They are from Germany and they are now known as power metal band. But I would say first and second album is definitely thrash metal. They had stable line up till their 8th "A Twist in the Myth" album. Their classic line up is Hansi Kürsch on vocals (ex-bass), André Olbrich, Marcus Siepen both on guitars and Thomas Stauch on drums. Stauch left the band in 2005 and joined other bands. I'd say their albums are cheesy but interesting and probably best on will be "Imaginations from the other side". Really thrash yet grandiose. So that's it. Latter albums are kinda machine like because over dubbed recording style and it's not raw enough. I known this band in early 2000s and they were rather well known in continental europe and south america as well as far east, Japan. This kind of genre "power metal" was rather over looked and weren't that popular in north america and in the U.K.

Being a band from Germany wouldn't help either. In music business you need to be either British or Yank otherwise music will be seen as crap or not get any attention for not being a native English speakers. Anyways they are good band and I think they should never be over looked. Now they are relatively known band in metal market.