Germany's Blind Guardian emerged in the late '80s with a style that fused gothic- and fantasy-tinged European power metal with the velocity and technical precision of speed metal. Since debuting in 1988 with the thrashy and raw Battalions of Fear, the band has evolved into a power, progressive, and neo-classical metal institution, delivering genre classics like Nightfall in Middle-Earth (1998), A Night at the Opera (2202), and A Twist in the Myth (2006), and orchestral works such as Legacy of the Dark Lands (2019) that skillfully pair fantastical narratives with ace musiciansh...