Imaginations from the Other Side

Imaginations from the Other Side, the fifth album, came out on Virgin in April 1995 as 7243 8 40337 2 9; sources split between the 4th and the 5th for the day. Victor Entertainment issued it in Japan on 14 April, as a standard edition (VICP-5519) and a limited edition with a photo book (VICP-8142), and the limited edition reached number eleven on Oricon. Victor says the band began work on it in 1994 with Flemming Rasmussen, known for his work with Metallica, as producer. It was recorded, mixed and mastered at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen in two runs, August to November 1994 and January to March 1995. It is the last album on which Hansi Kürsch also played bass; from then on he gave himself entirely to singing and writing lyrics. The title track is about imagination itself and calls up the escapist fantasies of childhood: The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and the Chronicles of Narnia. A loose story runs through the record, of a child who escapes through a mirror into an Arthurian world of swords, dragons and crusades before being brought back to reality, and the band took it up again twenty years later on Beyond the Red Mirror. The singles were "A Past and Future Secret" and "Bright Eyes"; for the "Bright Eyes" video the band dressed up as Pennywise and as a pink-haired punk. Rock Hard gave the album 9.5 and made it album of the month. The running order here is the original's as printed.