Nevermore
Quoth the raven, “Tis fucking good”
It has been a tough 5 years. This Godless Endeavor dropped almost exactly half a decade ago & it blew the world away. The complaints leveled (rather unfairly) at Enemies of Reality were rectified when they brought in uber-producer Andy Sneap. Nevermore enjoyed new heights of success culminating in a support slot for nu-metal lightweights, Disturbed. I wish I were kidding. After this trauma, Nevermore released the brilliant Year of the Voyager DVD then promptly dropped off the radar.
From the opening strains of The Termination Proclamation, it’s obvious, they’ve done it again. Majestic heavy metal that defies genre classification. Loomis’s 7 string mastery, Warrel Dane’s soaring vocals & an underlying appreciation of melody that is so often missing in metal today. And The Maiden Spoke is pure My Dying Bride-esque doom metal channeled through the twisted imagination of King Diamond. Ballad Emptiness Unobstructed is the outstanding track of the album with Loomis mostly taking a back seat to let Dane demonstrate his power.
Is this soliloquy or psychosis,
Or self hypnosis?
Moonrise (Through Mirrors Of Death) – Nevermore
The lyrics may have been carved from a single, massive block of edam & delivered in a manner fatal to lactose intolerants but it adds a level of accessibility to proceedings. For all the progressive touches & the guitar work that makes every bedroom guitarist cry into their Squier Strat, what makes Nevermore so special is the fact that they make great heavy metal that everyone with an IQ above 7 can appreciate. The Obsidian Conspiracy can sit happily within their canon of greats, somewhere between Dead Heart In A Dead World & their 2 masterpieces, This Godless Endeavor & Enemies Of Reality.
Special note should be made of the Limited Edition packaging which includes the rather ambitiously titled Play Guitar Like Jeff Loomis & a ton of artwork that really deserves framing.
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