A Twist in the Myth is the eighth studio album by the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 power metal

Power metal

Power metal is a style of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional metal with speed metal, often within symphonic context. The term refers to two different but related styles: the first pioneered and largely practiced in North America with a harder sound similar to speed metal, and a...

 band Blind Guardian

Blind Guardian

Blind Guardian is a German power metal band formed in the mid-1980s in Krefeld, West Germany. They are often credited as one of the seminal and most influential bands in the power metal and speed metal subgenres...

. It was originally set to be released on September 5, 2006 in Europe (which became the North American release date), but Nuclear Blast

Nuclear Blast

Nuclear Blast is an independent record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The record label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label moved on to releasing albums by melodic...

 changed the release date to September 1, 2006.

The album was released in several different formats: a normal version, a digipak

Digipak

Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI World Ltd., an Atlas Holdings company.-Features:...

 version with a bonus track and bonus CD, and a limited edition book-version. The book contains the digipak, along with a guitar pick

Guitar pick

A guitar pick is a plectrum used for guitars. A pick is generally made of one uniform material; examples include plastic, nylon, rubber, felt, tortoiseshell, wood, metal, glass, and stone...

, booklet and certificate of authenticity

Authentication

Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...

 and autograph

Autograph

An autograph is a document transcribed entirely in the handwriting of its author, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by an amanuensis or a copyist; the meaning overlaps with that of the word holograph.Autograph also refers to a person's artistic signature...

s, as well as a dragon-shaped seal and a bar of red sealing wax.

Track listing

All music written by Olbrich

André Olbrich

André Olbrich is the lead guitarist of the German power metal band Blind Guardian. He is one of the band's founders together with vocalist Hansi Kürsch, and serves as one of its main songwriters....

 and Kürsch

Hansi Kürsch

Hans Jürgen Kürsch, better known as Hansi Kürsch is a German musician, the lead vocalist and lyricist of power metal band Blind Guardian. Together with André Olbrich, he is also the principal songwriter for the band. He was also the bassist in Blind Guardian until the 1998 album Nightfall in...

. All lyrics written by Kürsch.

1. "This Will Never End" – 5:07
2. "Otherland" – 5:16
3. "Turn the Page" – 4:19
4. "Fly
   Fly (Blind Guardian song)
   "Fly" is a single by Blind Guardian from their 2006 release, A Twist in the Myth. Two of the songs are from the album, "Fly" and "Skalds and Shadows", with the latter being an acoustic version only available on the single...
   
   " – 5:46
5. "Carry the Blessed Home" – 4:05
6. "Another Stranger Me
   Another Stranger Me
   "Another Stranger Me" is the second single from the Blind Guardian album, A Twist In The Myth. Apart from the title track, it features two demo versions of the album songs, "All The King's Horses" which has previously appeared only as a bonus track on Japanese version of the album, and an all-new...
   
   " – 4:37
7. "Straight Through the Mirror" – 5:50
8. "Lionheart" – 4:17
9. "Skalds and Shadows" – 3:14
10. "The Edge" – 4:30
11. "The New Order" – 4:54
12. "All the King's Horses" – 4:12 (Japanese Bonus Track)
13. "Dead Sound of Misery" – 5:18 (Digipak Bonus Track)

• Digipack Bonus CD

1. Interview (Deutsch)
2. Interview (English)

• Double LP Bonus Tracks

1. "Market Square" (Demo) – 5:51
2. Interview (English) – 12:21

• "Dead Sound of Misery" is an alternative, darker version of "Fly".
• "All the King's Horses" is also available on the single "Another Stranger Me
  Another Stranger Me
  "Another Stranger Me" is the second single from the Blind Guardian album, A Twist In The Myth. Apart from the title track, it features two demo versions of the album songs, "All The King's Horses" which has previously appeared only as a bonus track on Japanese version of the album, and an all-new...
  
  ".
• "Market Square" is the demo version of "Straight Through the Mirror" and is only available on the Double LP and Limited Book versions of the album.

Lyrical references

• "This Will Never End" is inspired by Walter Moers
  Walter Moers
  Walter Moers is one of the best-known and commercially most successful German comic creators and authors.-Life and work:...
  
  ' A Wild Ride Through the Night
  A Wild Ride Through the Night
  A Wild Ride Through the Night is a novel by the German Author/ Cartoonist Walter Moers. It was first published in German in 2001 and is the story of Gustave Doré, a young boy who goes on a death defying adventure to defy Death...
  
  and tells of a meeting between the young illustrator Gustave Dore
  Gustave Doré
  Paul Gustave Doré was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.-Biography:...
  
   and the Grim Reaper who begins to doubt the existence of a divine masterplan and thus his own purpose.
• "Otherland" is based on Tad Williams
  Tad Williams
  Robert Paul "Tad" Williams, born in San Jose, California, is the author of several fantasy and science fiction novels, including Tailchaser's Song, the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, the Otherland series, and The War of the Flowers....
  
  ' Otherland
  Otherland
  Otherland is a science fiction tetralogy written by Tad Williams and published between 1996 and 2001. The story is set on Earth near the end of the 21st century, probably between 2082 and 2089 , in a world in which...
  
  series of novels.
• "Turn the Page" is about the Wiccan ritual of renewal and change of seasons, dealing with the Horned God and also contains references to the historical shift from Paganism to Christianity.
• "Fly" contains references to Peter Pan
  Peter Pan
  Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
  
   and was inspired by the film Finding Neverland
  Finding Neverland
  Finding Neverland is a 2004 semi-biographical film about playwright J. M. Barrie and his relationship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan, directed by Marc Forster. The screenplay by David Magee is based on the play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee...
  
  .
• "Carry the Blessed Home" is about Roland the Gunslinger
  Roland Deschain
  Roland Deschain of Gilead is a fictional character, the protagonist and antihero of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. He is the son of Steven and Gabrielle Deschain and is descended from a long line of "gunslingers", peacekeepers and diplomats of Roland's society...
  
   and Jake Chambers
  Jake Chambers
  John "Jake" Chambers is a fictional character in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of novels. He first appeared in the short story "The Way Station" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in April 1980, which was later compiled as one of the chapters of the first Dark Tower book, The...
  
   at the end of Stephen King
  Stephen King
  Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
  
  's Dark Tower
  The Dark Tower (series)
  The Dark Tower is a series of books written by American author Stephen King, which incorporates themes from multiple genres, including fantasy, science fantasy, horror and western. It describes a "Gunslinger" and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical. King...
  
  series.
• "Another Stranger Me" is about a person with dissociative identity disorder who discovers his multiple personalities and tries to find a way out of his situation. Source
• "Straight through the Mirror" tells how dreams can change very quickly – it's about the importance of dreams in general too. Some claim it's about a person describing the experience and process of dying while in reality this person is just dreaming it all.
• "Lionheart" is about Ulysses and how he travels through Hades, but in this song he doesn't find the way out. Hansi took inspiration from Gustave Dore, a French artist, and his illustrations of Dante's Inferno. The main character of the epic poem, Dante the Pilgrim, meets Ulysses in the Divine Comedy. Source
• "Skalds and Shadows" is sung from the point of view of an Old Norse Skald
  Skald
  The skald was a member of a group of poets, whose courtly poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking Age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry .The most prevalent metre of skaldic poetry is...
  
   with an allusion towards the Saga of the Volsungs (specifically the story of Sigurd
  Sigurd
  Sigurd is a legendary hero of Norse mythology, as well as the central character in the Völsunga saga. The earliest extant representations for his legend come in pictorial form from seven runestones in Sweden and most notably the Ramsund carving Sigurd (Old Norse: Sigurðr) is a legendary hero of...
  
   and Brunhilde) at the end.
• "The Edge" is about St. Paul
  Paul of Tarsus
  Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
  
   and his faith in the story of Christ as an incarnation of God due to his belief in the imminent ending of the world ("This is the Edge now/It's all we're living for...").
• "The New Order" deals with the necessity of changes.
• "All the King's Horses" is based on Welsh folklore and the Arthurian cycle and features references to Taliesin
  Taliesin
  Taliesin was an early British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin...
  
   and the Holy Grail
  Holy Grail
  The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
  
  .
• "Dead Sound of Misery" is a dark version of Fly in a minor key with alternate lyrics and vocal melodies portraying a mythological vision of the Apocalypse.

Personnel

• Hansi Kürsch
  Hansi Kürsch
  Hans Jürgen Kürsch, better known as Hansi Kürsch is a German musician, the lead vocalist and lyricist of power metal band Blind Guardian. Together with André Olbrich, he is also the principal songwriter for the band. He was also the bassist in Blind Guardian until the 1998 album Nightfall in...
  
   – vocals
• André Olbrich
  André Olbrich
  André Olbrich is the lead guitarist of the German power metal band Blind Guardian. He is one of the band's founders together with vocalist Hansi Kürsch, and serves as one of its main songwriters....
  
   – lead guitar
• Marcus Siepen
  Marcus Siepen
  Marcus Siepen is one of two guitarists in the power metal band Blind Guardian. For the biggest percentage of Blind Guardian's songs, particularly in more recent years, he has almost strictly played rhythm guitar, with most lead and solo work being performed by André Olbrich.-Personal:Siepen is...
  
   – rhythm guitar
• Frederik Ehmke – drums, percussion, flute and bagpipes

Guest Musicians

• Oliver Holzwarth
  Oliver Holzwarth
  Oliver Holzwarth is a German bass guitarist. He was born in Munich, Germany. He plays bass in Rhapsody of Fire along with his brother, drummer Alex Holzwarth. Oliver has been the live/studio bass player for Blind Guardian since 1998...
  
   – bass guitar
• The Choir Company – Olaf Senkbeil, Rolf Köhler
  Rolf Köhler
  Rolf Köhler was a German singer, musician and record producer.Rolf Köhler has been one of the most successful singers from Germany. His first success was on the 1970s under the Marc de Ville pseudonym...
  
  , Thomas Hackmann
• Martin G. Meyer and Pat Benzner – keyboards

Crew

• Charlie Bauerfeind
  Charlie Bauerfeind
  Charlie Bauerfeind is a German sound engineer and producer who has worked mostly with power metal bands such as Angra, Blind Guardian, Helloween, Primal Fear, Rage, HammerFall and Saxon....
  
   – producing, mastering, mixing and engineering
• Blind Guardian
  Blind Guardian
  Blind Guardian is a German power metal band formed in the mid-1980s in Krefeld, West Germany. They are often credited as one of the seminal and most influential bands in the power metal and speed metal subgenres...
  
   – producing
• Jan Rubach – engineering
• Marc Schettler – assistant engineering
• Anthony Clarkson – artwork
• Axel Jusseit – photos
• Nikolay S. Simkin – booklet design

Chart positions

• Germany: #4
• Sweden: #10
• Austria: #19
• Japan: #21
• USA: #288
• USA Billboard
  Billboard (magazine)
  Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
  
  Top Independent Albums: #21
• USA Billboard Top Heatseekers
  Top Heatseekers
  Top Heatseekers refers to either of two separate "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by Billboard Magazine: the Heatseekers Albums chart or the Heatseekers Songs chart. They were introduced by Billboard in 1993 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new and developing musical...
  
  : #13
• Switzerland: #27
• Finland: #30
• Norway: #38
• Spain: #15
• UK: #33 (independent chart)