Follow the Blind

Follow the Blind, the second album, came out on No Remorse Records in 1989 as NRR 1006 on LP and CD. Sources disagree on the month: the databases and a contemporary German magazine review point to April, the band's own discography to October. Victor Musical Industries issued it in Japan as VICP-8014 on 21 August 1990, the same day as Battalions of Fear and Tales from the Twilight World, and Metal Hammer's timeline says it ranked high on Japan's import chart for six months. It was recorded and mixed at Karo Studios in Münster in January and February 1989 and produced by Kalle Trapp. Kai Hansen, who had just left Helloween, plays lead guitar on "Hall of the King" and both lead guitar and lead vocal on "Valhalla", and Ward Records writes that this is what made the band's name among Japan's German-metal fans. "Valhalla" itself was written at the end of the sessions and put on the album only to make up the running time. The band's site puts the thrashier sound down to seeing Testament at the 1987 Dynamo festival and says the band regards this as its weakest album, because the emphasis fell on intensity. The opening "Inquisition" samples the monks' chant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The title track is based on The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub, and "Damned for All Time" and "Fast to Madness" on characters from Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series. The closing "Barbara Ann" is, in the band's words, a medley of The Regents' "Barbara Ann" and Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally". The player on this page plays the 2017 remaster. The running order here is the original's as printed.