Among the Living Dead

This song features the voice of Blind Guardian singer Hansi Kürsch, who also contributed backing vocals to some other Plagues of Babylon tracks. He also is a member of the side project Demons and Wizards along with Iced Earth mainman/guitarist Jon Schaffer. Speaking with Metal Exiles, Schaffer explained how the collaboration happened: "Well the thing of it is, because we were in Germany, and literally like an hour and a half from Hansi's house it was pretty easy," he said. "That's different than doing something like Demons & Wizards where you have to get together, write songs, and I mean, Hansi came into the studio for one day. He got there around 2:00 in the afternoon, and he left at I think 10 or 11 that night. That's a whole different thing, coming in and singing parts that are already written, than getting together and writing songs...that's something that can take a couple months." "I talked to Hansi while we were in Germany doing pre-production for the tracking and that was also pretty close to his house and he came to visit us and I played the song, 'Among the Living Dead' for him and I told him I would love for you to do a verse in this song," Schaffer continued. "He agreed, and said it would be cool, and of course he'd be up for that. And then a little bit later I mentioned to him that normally when I'm working in Indiana or Florida I have a group of backing vocalists that I can call upon to sing choir parts on the album, on the choruses. And being in Germany I was a stranger in a strange land, so I called Hansi and he said he'd be happy to help out and that he had a friend he could bring along too. So, that's how that worked out."