The Angry Scotsman Nevermore's second best album

"Dead Heart in a Dead World" is another great output by the Seattle prog metal band. A tad overlooked/underrated by Nevermore fans I was never sure why until many listens, when I realized while absolutely Nevermore style, it is a bit different from most of their work. It has all we want from them but is overall a bit less intense, more progressive, and melodic than a lot of their discog. Their progressive songs do have the heavy tremolo riffing, shred solos and thrashiness Nevermore fans crave, but not to much. This is in stark contrast to their upcoming album which is a flat out face melting speed fest.

The album starts out with "Narcosynthesis" which is a fairly standard but pretty decent Nevermore song. "We Disintegrate" is a slower, heavy song with some wonderful harmonies. "Inside Four Walls" is a high point of the album.

A mid tempo, thrashy song about the US government and injustice of the prison system, specifically drug law. About "a friend" who was "taken away" the song has some of my favorite lyrics by the band with lines such as: "Can anyone tell me why violent crime means far less time?" the chorus "Inside four walls my friend, they took away your freedom, and the pigs still preach their lies" and an interlude bluntly stating that drug offenders in the US serve more time than rapists, child molesters and murderers, asking is this American way? Ends on a powerful note, with Dane yelling out "they took away your freedom, but they'll never take your mind!"

"Evolution 169" is a very slow, melodic song and a nice change of pace. "The River Dragon has Come" is perhaps my favorite on the album, a progressive song with some awesome writing, it's packed with great riffs, powerful solos, lots of variation and a great structure. Another powerful ending, going with the highest wails I've heard Dane reach! Awesome song.

"The Heart Collecter" is another slow, heavy song that is packed with emotion, very moving song. Followed by the speed laden "Engines of Hate" and an intriguing cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" which is the most intense song on the album. "Insignificant" is another slower song which leads to the powerful "Believe in Nothing" featuring some normal singing, soaring vocals and a scathing critique of religion, but done in that tasteful Nevermore way, with great lyrics that elude so many metal bands.

The album ends with the title song, a haunting yet beautiful guitar melody, static and chilling lyrics burst into an awesome and crazy song. Not much more can be said, this is perhaps the bands most balanced album. Featuring some of it all: epic riffing, mind blowing guitar solos and power metal movement but also lots of slower stuff and some of the most powerful and emotional music the band has written. There's no bad song though "We Disintegrate" is probably the weakest, while "The River Dragon has Come", "The Sound of Silence" and "Believe in Nothing" are the standouts.

Great Album Four and a Half Stars

The Angry Scotsman Nevermore's Magnum Opus

This album is the bands greatest work, and one of the best metal albums I've encountered. Got this album when it came out in 2005 and it was the first time I heard the name Nevermore. I was blown away. The music floored me, and this was also one of my earliest introductions to progressive metal, at a time when I was solely a thrash and death metal head. "This Godless Endeavor" had a major impact on me personally and is an amazing album.

This album is an amalgam of all the band's styles, in a perfectly blended and composed masterpiece. Dubbed "progressive power neo-classical thrash metal" by some of us, this album has it all, but never sounds crammed together or sounds off. It all works together seamlessly, built around lightning fast and crazy guitar work, intense drumming and Dane's unique vocals, (which take on an even more hard edge here and showcase some dark, lower register tones). All of it tempered with progressive song writing and sprinkled with neo classical shred solos. The drumming is amazing, largely European power style chains of double bass, (sometimes at breakneck speed) but also with lots of thrash and healthy heaps of blast beats! Van Williams puts on a good show of extreme drumming, but also great variation. Sometimes melodic, technical, exotic, off tempo, often changing on a dime and always fitting of the music. To this day, one of my favorite drumming performances.

The lyrics are dark: often bleak and bitter criticisms of the media, technology, a drugged up (erm medicated) society, government, religion and humanity in general. Thankfully they are never corny or come off as angry tirades. Though anger is deeply flowing, it's tempered with intriguing vocabulary, (this is metal after all) and vague stanzas that require some thought. Nice change from the unrestrained and amateurish anger often hurled at us from metal bands. "Sentient 6" is about some type of AI being designated to destroy humanity but grows conflicting feelings of inspiration and contempt for humanity. "My Acid Words" ends on a powerful note with Dane bellowing out "It's a one way ride and there's nothing you can do! Not even suicide or my acid words can teach you, anything useful..." One of the more crushing parts of the album.

Every song is good, so I will just say listen to the album. In fact, every song is great, with "Bittersweet Feast" being a tad weaker than the rest. Now it is a good song, but just not quite the standard of the rest. Besides that song, this is a truly perfect album, and without it this would be flawless, probably getting a spot on my mantle of 6 Star Albums.

Besides each song being great, they are each unique and the album has good flow, starting off intense before moving into a more mellow, progressive section and rising back up to bludgeon back home. The album ends with the 9 minute prog metal piece "This Godless Endeavor" that is one of my all time favorite songs.

It's always been my opinion that the best bands are those who truly progress, maintaining but taking steps forward tweaking and refining, rather than "experimenting" by taking wild stabs in the dark or risky and drastic swings. The former is what Nevermore has done culminating in this brilliant piece of progressive metal.

Masterpiece FIVE STARS

UMUR "Nevermore" is the self-titled debut full-length studio album by US, Seattle based metal act Nevermore. The album was released in January 1995 by Century Media Records. Nevermore was founded on the ashes of the legendary US power metal act Sanctuary. Sanctuary released two albums that are arguably some of the most essential US power metal albums released in the late eighties/ early nineties in "Refuge Denied (1987)" and "Into The Mirror Black (1990)". The band disbanded in 1991 because of internal strife among the members on the future musical direction of Sanctuary. Apparently some members wanted to pursue a new more alternative rock direction while especially lead vocalist Warrel Dane and bassist Jim Sheppard wanted Sanctuary to continue in the US power metal style. After Sanctuary split-up, Warrel Dane and Jim Sheppard founded Nevermore with guitarist Jeff Loomis, who had very briefly been a member of Sanctuary before they split-up. Various drummers played with the band, who worked daytime jobs and recorded quite a few demos in the years 1991 - 1995 before they settled on Van Williams as their drummer. The album is supposedly compiled from two different demo sessions with producer Neil Kernon and the versions on this album are the same as the versions on the two demos. They have been re-mastered for this release though. The fact that the tracks are recorded during two different sessions is also apparent as Mark Arrington plays the drums on 4 tracks while Van Williams plays the drums on the remaining 4 tracks.

People who knew Sanctuary, knows that they played a style of US power metal that featured thrash metal elements too. The music on "Nevermore" is actually quite a natural continuation of that style but with some adjustments. Nevermore play an even heavier and darker US power metal/ thrash metal style than was the case with Sanctuary (which in their time definitely were one of the most heavy US power metal acts out there). A large part of the reason for this is the addition of Jeff Loomis who already this early in the band´s career showed great promise. He possesses equal amounts of melodic and technical sensibility. He would develop an even more personal and unique guitar playing style on later album releases, but his playing and composing on this album is a great part of why the music sounds the way it does. Another defining factor is of course the powerful and paatos filled vocals by Warrel Dane. In his Sanctuary days he mostly sang in his screaming high pitched vocal style, but on this album he varies his style much more and also sings both low- and mid register styled vocals. A positive development to my ears.

The fact that the tracks were recording in two different sessions over the course of a year does have an impact on the consistency of the material IMO. The sound production could have been better and while the album isn´t as such badly produced I sometimes find the album a bit strenuous to get through because of the sound. There certainly is a professional "demo" sound quality to the album. The quality of the material also varies some. While all tracks are well written, tracks like the ultra heavy "What Tomorrow Knows", the intriguing "C.B.F." and power ballad like "The Sanity Assassin" stand above the rest in quality and memorability. Interestingly enough they are the first three tracks on the album. It´s like the longer you get into the album the more the quality of the material drops and by the time you reach the two closing tracks "Timothy Leary" and "Godmoney", we´re on a pretty standard songwriting level.

So overall I´d call "Nevermore" a high quality yet bumpy start to Nevermore´s recording career. It´s definitely the album by Nevermore I listen to the least, but I guess it says a lot about the quality of the album, when I despite my issues with the album, still awards it with a solid 3.5 star rating.

The Angry Scotsman 5 years in the making.

So when I heard about the news, via my brother, I was ecstatic. We both were, since their last album "This Godless Endeavor" was a near flawless masterpiece, and one of the biggest albums in my life.

I was a bit disappointed when I first heard this album, and gave it some time off to separate it from their last. I did get a bit more enjoyment from it over time, but still it left me feeling little. It sounded right, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then I found out why. This is honestly the best way to describe the album, (courtesy of Jeff Loomis):

"Obviously, this is a different NEVERMORE album, from our point of view. The music is a little less complex, the songs are more structured, the choruses come in quicker. I mean, it's a more straight-forward album than we've ever done."

And that producer Peter Wichers was very involved with the songwriting, prodding Loomis to "cut the fat" and make the songs "more catchier and hookier" opposed to his usual 7-8 minute songs. I didn't know who Peter Wichers was, so I looked him up to find out he was from Soilwork. Suddenly, it all made sense... (can you guess I'm not really a fan?)

On the first listen it struck me how toned down the prog was. The progressive and complex song structures that I loved so much about "This Godless Endeavor" were largely gone. There was also less use of acoustic guitar and generally less melodic writing. This is a stripped down, straight forward Nevermore album.

So, where does that leave us? This is a decent album. It has a Nevermore feel, some awesome riffing, but is just driving down a straight road. Nothing is weak, but nothing really stands out. The musicianship is awesome, as always, and Dane's vocals come out even more. This was also a conscious effort, with Loomis stating the albums less complex sound was to leave Dane with more space for his vocals. While produced by Wichers, the album was mixed and mastered by long time associate Andy Sneap, thus it has that classic Nevermore sound. Airtight, crisp, heavy. Perfect really, for their style of music. As usual you can hear every note with clarity.

Again, a decent album that should please Nevermore fans enough, and be a good album for most metalheads to rock out with (which is good since this album may be gaining the band much more exposure). Only track that does stand out is the finale, which deserves a place in the thrash metal hall of fame. One intense song that has a good flow and is damn catchy.

Good, not great, album with awesome musicianship restrained by unspectacular and uninspired song structures. While not bad, and still enjoyable to Nevermore fans, some may be pretty let down. I always give kudos to a band for mixing things up, especially at risk of "going mainstream" but I do hope in the future they stick with Sneap and what they are best at.

Two and a Half Stars

bonnek After a long absence and a couple of solo projects, Nevermore returns with an album that should be very satisfactory to their fanbase. The reason being that the album doesn't deviate an inch from the trodden paths on the previous albums.

Despite its qualities, the familiar approach often disappoints me. In the opening track for instance, Warrel Dane fails to come up with vocal lines that he hasn't done countless times before. Also the guitar riffs and chord changes often have a familiar ring to them. Things improve on "Your Position Throne", not that it hold any surprises but the band has found that eerie tone back from their earliest albums, where the influence from Gothic bands such as Bauhaus was still a more important element to their sound than the power-thrash of the 3 last albums.

All goes very well till the track "Emptiness Unobstructed", which also reminds too much of older songs. "The Blue Marble" brings some welcome variation after the preceding onslaught of powerful riffing. It's a nice little ballad that abstains from anthemic metal ballad clichés. Clichés abound on "Without Morals" though, which is another Nevermore track we've heard too much. With "The Day You Built The Wall" the album gets back on track. "She Comes In Colors" and the closing title track especially are also satisfactory thrash epics.

"The Obsidian Conspiracy" is an album that won't disappoint the Nevermore fanbase, it's only nitpickers like myself that have gotten tired of the formulas that Nevermore returns to all too frequently. Overall, a safe but good album.