If you know me in person, it’s quite likely that you’ve hear me rave about this album at least once. If you don’t… tough, unless you stop reading NOW, you’re going to suffer the same fate. 
I love heavy metal, as any reader of this blog will probably have figured out by now. I also love epic stuff. And I love Tolkien’s books, especially “Lord of the Rings”… and “The Silmarillion” (which was edited by his son, from Tolkien’s notes). Blind Guardian’s 1998 album, “Nightfall in Middle-Earth”, is all of those put together… and the result is a masterpiece that both metal fans and Tolkien fans should worship.
This concept album tells most of the story of “The Silmarillion”, but from individual points of view, instead of “historically” like in the book. You get to “listen” to thoughts and emotions from characters such as Morgoth, Fëanor, and others. It’s also darker, in terms of feelings of despair, than the book - which is already quite “dark” to begin with. The music itself ranges from speed metal pieces to “bardic” ballads, with shorter speaking passages and sound effects between songs, all to tell the story. More than in any other BG album, in NiME choruses are used to great effect, making the music sound incredibly epic and “vast”; this hurt the band a little, in a way, as most of this album is almost unplayable live unless you had a huge chorus. On the other hand, by not limiting themselves to what would be playable live, they created much more than a simple metal album.
Powerful, dark, emotional and sublime, this is epic power metal at its best. However, please, try it out, even if you think metal is “just noise” - you may be surprised.
From “The Curse of Fëanor”:
A swamp of filth exists
A lake it was of crystal beauty
But Arda’s spring went by
I’ve heard the warning
Well curse my name
I’ll keep on laughing
No regret
No regret
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