Review by Shadowdoom9 (Andi) for Blind Guardian - The God Machine (2022)
Well this is interesting. I gave this Blind Guardian album some listening before selecting it as The Guardians feature release to start off 2026, and I thought it was good but not their best album, giving it a 3.5 rating. Then as I listened to it again for this reviewing section, the power metal spark I had within me ignited brighter, as it already has been in the past few months. I ended up boosting my rating up a whole star! I think my Guardians light is finally shining the brightest in so many years.
Their first album in 7 and a half years (not including their orchestral album Legacy of the Dark Lands), The God Machine is a true comeback for the Bards. 30 years after Somewhere Far Beyond, they've resurrected their heavier roots from that album that would be re-recorded two years later in this one. It's a show not to be missed out on!
"Deliver Us From Evil" opens the album with great bombastic power metal, throwing back to their magnum opus Imaginations From the Other Side. The vocal tone is almost the closest vocalist Hansi Kursch has gotten to his thrashy shrieks from the late 80s. The heavy "Damnation" deviates from the previous albums' epicness for darkness and speed. And then we have the mid-paced epic "Secrets of the American Gods". It sounds straight out of Beyond the Red Mirror with its orchestral grandeur. Beautiful!
The harmonic speed comes back in "Violent Shadows", further departing from the mid-era symphonics. It's filled with the violent thrashy speed metal sound from their late-80s era. Next track "Life Beyond the Spheres" is the previous one's polar opposite, more bombastic and mid-paced. EPIC! "Architects of Doom" follows up on the previous track's massive slow sound at first, then cranks up the riffing speed. We all know how top-notch the guitar duo Andre Olbrich and Markus Siepen can be. Siepen has the usual fast riffing rhythm while Olbrich executes kick-A soloing, proving that his talents are still sky-high as they were in the 90s.
"Let It Be No More" has the most of Kursch's vocal grace. However, the song itself is a power ballad. While that's not a problem (as proven by my thoughts on the ballads in Imaginations From the Other Side), this one doesn't sit totally well with me. Still I love it more than in my prior listens of this album, and that's another reason for my rating boost. "Blood of the Elves" has more of that heavy speedy power metal ala Somewhere Far Beyond. The closing track "Destiny" is also not as strong as the rest, but it's OK.
Blind Guardian shall be hailed as Germany's original leaders of power metal, alongside Helloween, though I've strangely known the former longer than the latter. Anyway, each Blind Guardian album has a different unique twist in their sound while staying the way they are. For The God Machine, it's all adding the speed they had in their first 5 albums to their bombastic era of the new millennium. This kind of balance is quite rewarding and gets better in every listen, whether gradually or suddenly. Not many bands can still have their greatness 3 or 4 decades into their career, but the Bards can. So come enter The God Machine!
Favorites: "Deliver Us From Evil", "Secrets of the American Gods", "Life Beyond the Spheres", "Architects of Doom", "Blood of the Elves"