Nevermore

Dreaming Neon Black (Century Media)
by Martin Popoff

If ever there was a record that drags listeners into and under its sombre storyline with the force, sound and slash of propeller blades pummeling the torso, it is the new masterpiece from Nevermore. Warrel Dane has concocted and elevated a semi-autobiographical tale based on the utter, blank, unsolved disappearance of a loved one and the subsequent descent into madness (and in the case of the main character: suicide) of the one with loss. But if Nevermore violently batters the listener into rapt attention, there is also present the band’s sense of wave and water, the unwary follower of the record’s mind-decay fable, in a sense called to drown within the words and more importantly, the vocals of Dane, whose clarion calls are various and always hair-raising.

Musically, the band is as hard, cold, indifferent and efficient as the snaring of the listener. You don’t even realize how difficult and progressive the rhythms and riffs are, because the whole thing sounds live off the floor, ricocheting with gravel and spark like a drunken 4×4 romp through the scrapyards of metal. Accompanying the epic sweep of music appropriately toward the idea of the “concept album,” is another, perhaps more surprising dimension to the band’s unique sound, and that is the use of acoustic guitars. Nowhere is this more stunning than in the layered death knells of the title track, which sounds like the best of Floyd black’n’blue’d by Type O Negative. Ultimately what happens with this record is this: you believe it, and for the first time in a long time with a concept record, you become draped in the tale, in no hurry to leave, in less hurry once suffocation stops dead the heart.
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