837. Blind Guardian / Memories of a Time to Come. 2012. 4/5

What do you do when you decide it is time to take a long and well deserved break from touring and writing, in order to keep your fans remembering that you are still out there, but just on a sabbatical? Well, you release a box set containing the majority of your back catalogue firstly, and then you release a double album packed full of some of your greatest hits, with some remixing on some tracks and some remastering on some tracks, and put it out into the public sphere to feast upon.

As always, greatest hits packages are a subjective argument. There will always be songs included and songs that are left out that will be debated by fans as to whether it was warranted. This is no exception. Depending upon whether you rate one era of Blind Guardian over another, this could be seen to be somewhat of a furphy. I think the toughest part of picking out songs for a best of for Blind Guardian is the fact that all of the songs intertwine with the others on their album, making them a part of the fabric of that album, thus meaning to hear them individually sometimes doesn't work because you are expecting to hear them with their other songs around them. In time they work fine in that respect, as is obvious through the songs that make the live set list each tour, but initially that can be a bit more difficult that you would expect.
Certainly this double album is packed full of great songs, with many of my favourites here, such as "Nightfall", "Traveller in Time", "Follow the Blind", "Sacred Worlds", "Valhalla" and "Mirror Mirror". None of the entries can be questioned, and as a soundtrack to the career of Blind Guardian it serves its purpose if being used as an introduction point for the uninitiated.

So let's just say that I enjoy this collection, and it has some terrific songs on it. If I had been in charge of the track list it would have been quite different from this one - I mean really, where the hell is "Welcome to Dying" for a start?!? And the fact that these songs have had a makeover also improves the release.

Rating:  Best-of in competition.  4/5