Blind Guardian – Nightfall In Middle-Earth

Picture this: it's 1998, you have been reading and loving Tolkien's work for a while, and "The Silmarillion" is your favourite book out of his output.

Also, your favourite band is about to release a new album. Internet is not as widely available as it's today, so you have limited information about it.

Anyway, you are going to buy it blindly!
On the day of the release, at your local record store, you're handed over a baroquely lush, greenish hued cover with a familiar scene: in the bowels of a hellish and bleak fortress, a female elf dances in front of a dark lord crowned with 3 shiny jewels, while a wolf stands just below, about to jump on them.
"Nightfall In Middle Earth", reads the title.

Your heart skips a beat.

Inside, you are witness to how your favourite band reaches its maturity and stylistic summit, and manages to create what will be yet another touchstone, a reference and guide to any future power metal band.

The band took the already increasingly epic sound and songwriting of "Imaginations From The Other Side" a step further, and managed to create the perfect blend of heaviness, epics, symphonic and heartfelt songwriting embodied in 11 songs, some of which became, and still are, live staples at the band's shows.

My favourite power metal album for years to come: 24 years later, it's still chiseled in my mind and heart.

The sheer power and epic of "Into The Storm", "Mirror Mirror" or "Time Stands Still", the progressive hues in "Noldor", the sorrow, grief and pain in "Blood Tears, "Thorn" or "When Sorrow Sang"... Every single song here is a masterpiece that consolidated the resurrection of metal's popularity at the end of the nineties and rightfully turned Blind Guardian into legends, overlords and (pun intended!) guardians of the European scene.

In my top 10 best metal album ever!!! Immense and Wonderful!!