Top 10 Hansi Kürsch Vocal Performances

Hansi Kürsch is an incredibly talented metal singer, lyricist, bassist and songwriter from Germany.

Allegedly a vocal god with stellar vocal skills. His voice is phenomenal.

Hansi can sound extremely aggressive, harsh, demonic and raw. But he can also sound beautifully soft, angelic and soothing. Both versions of his voice leave me in awe and I can’t believe this is the same singer. The passion in his voice is unmatched.

Hansi creates a choir effect via his signature practice of overdubbing his own voice multiple times in complex and overlapping harmonies. Pure genius.

Some unusual facts: his voice sounds more youthful in his 40s-50s than in his 20s-30s, he began singing in a higher register in his 40s.
The Top Ten
1 And Then There Was Silence - Blind Guardian

14 minutes of epicness and awesomeness.
Not to mention that Hansi sang this live and it was mindblowing - not many singers go for such a tough material live. Actually not many singers can sing it even in the studio.

2 My Last Sunrise - Demons & Wizards

Goosebumps all the way. Hansi sang his head off. One of the greatest and most emotive vocal performances I've ever heard. It's breathtaking.
Every second of this song has something impressive - either a soft beautiful note, or a harsh note, scream, skillful transition, etc.
The way Hansi gradually leads you to the climax is perfect (0:35-0:50, 1:30-1:40, 3:10-3:25).

I've listened to this song many times and Hansi vocals still hit me like a 10 ton hammer.

3 Thorn - Blind Guardian

Low notes, high notes, all they powerful and full of emotion and passion. Words can't describe this beauty, especially the beginning and around 2:30. There's such a low and resonant note at the beginning that you literally feel vibrations coming from his voice on the word 'king'.
Pay attention that his natural voice is quite low (he's a baritone) but on some other songs Hansi hits notes in the tenor register that could give real tenors a run for their money.

4 Wheel of Time - Blind Guardian

This is so powerful that can be used for resurrection - 9 minutes of passion (2:20-2:50, 3:35-4:40, 6:20-7:10).
The section from 7:00-7:10 is sick: Hansi sounds like a soprano (female opera voice! ). And he sang it at 44!
Geez, how many notes and words sings this guy per song? Songs are long, fast, and complex!

5 Fiddler On the Green - Demons & Wizards

Shivers up and down my spine. This sad ballad describes a car accident where a girl is killed.
As a great storyteller, Hansi changes the intonation of his voice together with the story he tells in this song - his voice sounds melancholy, angry, innocent, ghostly, angelic, demonic, funeral, you name it.
Hansi also nailed the scream before the guitar outro (4:05) - it's long and insane yet melodic because it's crafted. Is this the last scream of the dying body when the soul leaves it?

6 Age of False Innocence - Blind Guardian

The saddest thing is that the best Hansi note EVER is on this song - at 1:25 on the word "walls" and later again the same note on the word "God" from the line "Predestined's our part so we bleed in the name of God". He did it twice meaning it wasn't something he did by chance. It was a controlled and planned note.
But because this is the most underrated Blind Guardian song, nobody has heard this incredible note. And many other beautiful notes.

Some really light but still quite intense singing here. His voice sounds very agile and youthful. A very underrated prog song - his vocals are awesome.

7 Noldor (Dead Winter Reigns) - Blind Guardian

Both low and high notes are gorgeous, powerful, full and intense. You can hear a big share of his range in this song (here from C♯2 to A5). Pure eargasm.

8 Path of Glory - Demons & Wizards
9 Bright Eyes - Blind Guardian

To start, check out the song sample. You just have to hear this performance because I can't describe it.

10 Tanelorn (Into the Void) - Blind Guardian

Another incredible performance - at 44 his voice still had great power and aggression. A very intense performance, great screams and full high notes. Sheer vocal badassery.

The Contenders
11 When Sorrow Sang - Blind Guardian

I'll let you figure out why this should be up in the top; once around 0:45/0:50 when he screams "At all." and again at 2:25/2:30 when he roars "Her." Yeah, this song's intense. And not just a vocal epic either, this is probably BG's best raw metal performance as well. So fast, so aggressive, so consistent in every note.

12 Harvest of Sorrow - Blind Guardian

A very soft ballad showing his beautiful lyrical voice, with some of his best vocal harmonies, if not the best.

13 Dream a Little Dream of Me - Blind Guardian

This song shows his stylistic versatility, I.e. ability to sing different styles and possibly genres outside metal. This is very important because stylistic versatility is one of the criteria to compare singers. When vocal experts compare singers, metal singers often lose out to worse non-metal singers just because metal singers don't get points for stylistic versatility, if they did only metal.

This song is a metal cover of a hit recorded in 1931. So Hansi proves that he can also sing like a romantic singer of the 1930s, esp. the beginning of the song. He sounds amazing and I can't believe it's Hansi. But on the chorus he uses his metal vocal style. How he gets this smooth soft voice and then the powerful metal rasp? As I said earlier, he's a vocal, stylistic and tonal chameleon.

14 Heaven Denies - Demons & Wizards

This one also leaves me in awe:
1) his vocal in the outro is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard - it's angelic! The outro is a gregorian chant with his signature vocal harmonies;
2) the way Hansi sings "Oh I made up my mind" always creates in my mind an association with a sudden attack of a deadly snake! His belting is awesome.
3) vox in the rest of the song are also very intense and Hansi doesn't slow down at all.

15 Nightfall - Blind Guardian

Hansi's greatness as a storyteller. Hands down.

16 Mirror Mirror - Blind Guardian
17 Tear Down the Wall - Demons & Wizards

An exemplary vocal performance - vocals on slow and fast parts are flawless.

18 Lord of the Rings - Blind Guardian

Vocals of this ballad are Oh my god!
Find the live version from Tokyo on YouTube and don't bother about the studio versions. When I listen to this live version I forget it's live and only the applauses at the end remind me it was live. I'm pretty sure this is best live vocal performance I've ever heard. This is how a singer should sound live:
"Blind Guardian - The Lord Of The Rings [Live Tokyo Tales]"

19 A Past and Future Secret - Blind Guardian

This track is a great opportunity to hear Hansi's voice clearly because it's a unique acoustic ballad and instruments are not loud.
His voice so sorrowful, beautiful and powerful at the same time.

20 Majesty - Blind Guardian

Lets not forget about his aggressive, raw and harsh vocals - part of his versatility. This is my favorite speed metal song, which is thrashy aggressive and from 5:40-6:20 is really full of adrenaline.

21 Fly - Blind Guardian

This perfect smoothness is his voice is very different from the most of his songs and I always enjoy this song for the mentioned contrast. I can't believe his voice was so clean and fresh at 40 and even began sounding more youthful!

22 Down Where I Am - Demons & Wizards
23 The Throne - Blind Guardian

Flawless vox throughout the entire song but 5:30-6:00 is my favorite part - really fast and unstoppable singing. Does Hansi take breath? Sure he does but his breath control and breath support are excellent. Overall, great vox from a metal singer at 50.

24 Another Stranger Me - Blind Guardian

Play the song sample to hear both his head and chest voices and the perfect switches between them: head-chest-head-chest-head voice. It's like a duet with himself.

25 Crimson King - Demons & Wizards

This song is also full with frequent and perfect switches between "head-chest" voice. Excellent singing.

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