Nevermore - Dreaming Neon Black

One of the most underrated bands in the U.S. metal scene is Nevermore, formerly the mighty technical-power metal band called Sanctuary. Seattle had a hold on the music scene for most of the 90’s, but the underappreciated and criminally uncovered Nevermore was running rampant with its technical thrash metal backed by the shredding giant Jeff Loomis and metal’s resident poet laureate Warrel Dane. After two amazing full-lengths and an EP, the band embarks on its most impressive (and in my eyes unmatched) opus titled Dreaming Neon Black.

The conceptual piece about the perils of organized religion and the brainwashing of underground cults forced Dane’s hand as he pulled the most touching and inspired lyrics these eyes have ever read in a metal album. Drawing from his personal well of loss and anger, the album was destined for greatness. It remains, to the present day, one of the most caustic, volatile, hateful albums submersed in the most intense beauty, pain, apathy and sorrow one might draw from the inner core.

For me to pick just one song from this masterpiece is impossible, it truly is. The lyrics Dane provides for this album are the type of dialogue that can and will haunt you if you resister it properly. With such thought-provoking lyrics like the ones in “Deconstruction,” “The Fault of the Flesh”, “The Lotus Eaters”, “No More Will” and “Forever” you honestly can’t help but be pulled into Dane’s pained soul and follow him on the exhaustive search for answers through these tracks. The disappearance and eventual tragic discovery of a close person to him forces him to travel through his pain and resentment to call out the divisional charlatans that encompass weak and impressionable people. He does so with such alarming accuracy and honesty that, I am not ashamed to say, on what might well have been the hundredth time I heard this album, I wept at the sincerity of Dane’s words and emotional vocal throughout, especially on the title track and “Forever”. This is the only metal album to ever draw such an emotional reaction from me on that level, and I am forever fascinated by that.

As for the music, what can you really say of Jeff Loomis, bassist Jim Sheppard and drummer Van Willams? These guys complimented Warrel’s words. Just listen to the beginning of “Deconstruction” where Warrel hits the lines “The victim that self crucifies can’t realize--/Christ is a weapon that chisels at our lives-“ and hear just how perfectly the entire tone is set through the hissing vermin from Dane’s rage. While Williams and Sheppard hold up the back end of this seemingly infallible wall of sadness, Loomis is tossing in scales and intricate chord sequences mixed with the occasional flamenco-style notes for measure and effect, further announcing his brilliance to a world too used to mall-inspired mediocrity and this goofy half-note-riff era. From the speedy ascension through anger and renouncement to the slow, despaired simmering within the confines of helplessness and questions, Nevermore manages to convey in one album what many bands spend careers attempting to capture from newspapers and periodicals. There is no current events line to tread here; this album was personal all the way around for all involved, and the majesty of its resonance is unquestioned.

I cannot recommend Nevermore enough if you’ve been unfortunate not to have heard them to this point. They are the thinker’s band, a statement that, if pushed, I can defend vigorously with a million and one reasons. As a fan, they are the everyband; as a musician they are all I ever want to be, and if ever I was lucky enough to create an album even remotely close to this treasure I’d be luck on two feet.

It’s simply perfect…just perfect.                      

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Let me just begin by saying that I think Warrel Dane is a genius.

I know, a lot of people think that is silly, fanboy talk, and you may well be right. However, let me just say that if not for Warrel Dane I’m not sure I’d even be here writing this. I don’t usually open myself up this way, but since this is my review with my personal feeling on the album I’ll open the doors a bit…if you’ll humor this old man.

From about 1995 to just recently I suffered from severe depression that was at times crippling and all-consuming, like a cancer eating at me. I was a death wish on two feet, that’s for certain. Most of you can’t and won’t ever imagine what it’s like to wake up daily with no reason to go on, and I hope you never do. That said, I was at a very low point in my life and was about to cash it in, as weak as that is to me now. Then I heard this album by this secret-in-waiting Seattle act called Nevermore and was so emotionally encompassed by the record that I listened to it in loops for hours, every chance I got, every free minute was ingesting this album and its lyrics by a guy that was seemingly in as much pain as I was, even if for entirely different reasons. He lost someone close to him due to a cult; I lost parts of myself to depression from a bout with cancer some years earlier. I cried when I heard the title track, I cried when I heard “No More Will” and I cried even more when I enveloped “Forever”, a track that still stirs in me every time I hear it. This music found something inside me that was missing or buried and brought it out; I won’t say this album “changed my life…I’m saved…all hail Nevermore!!” but it certainly put some things in perspective for me as a young(er) man in need of answers myself.

Every note, every lyric, every vocal nuance Warrel Dane utters is such perfection to me that I will for a long time to come claim this is one of, if not the greatest heavy metal records of all time. For me, as a lifelong metal fan, I look for music that makes me think, causes me to question, and lets me know I’m not alone in my want for answers beyond the force-feeding that occurs in schools, workplaces and private homes every day. This album does that from the very first note to the last, and for me that is the perfect mesh of beauty, honesty and talent. I’m always lost in this album when I hear it, each and every time; its perfect production, its flawless sequencing of songs, and the roller-coaster of emotions herein is nothing short of timeless. I understand that Dead Heart in a Dead World or even This Godless Endeavor will always be the mainstays that people “got into” Nevermore with, and that’s fine. But for this guy who was a Sanctuary fan way back, yet arrived to the Nevermore camp late (around this album’s time period), this is the album that will always get me through my tough periods in life and help me understand that nothing is worth all of the pain we keep inside and harness like a team of spooked Clydesdales waiting for that break to come. Life can always get better…for some of us it’s sadly over before our time, and I’m sure Warrel Dane carries this person with him daily. Who the hell am I to throw that in his face?              

I’ve already personally thanked Warrel Dane for this album, and he listened to my very abridged story with sincere interest and understanding, then hugged me and thanked me for “getting it”.

No, man, thank you!

Release Date: January 6, 1999
Label: Century Media Music

TRACK LISTING

1.  Ophidian
2.  Beyond Within
3.  The Death of Passion
4.  I am the Dog
5.  Dreaming Neon Black
6.  Deconstruction
7.  The Fault of the Flesh
8.  The Lotus Eaters
9.  Poison Godmachine
10.  All Play Dead
11.  Cenotaph
12.  No More Will
13.  Forever

Total playing time:  01:06:05

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Classic Review

February 23, 2011

Reviewer: Chris