Line #49 Music/Nevermore


1	Nevermore was a ProgressiveMetal band (with influences from every Metal SubGenre this side of Norway thrown into the mix) formed from the ashes of Power-Metallers Music/{{Sanctuary}} in UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}}, 1991. They are noted for the blazing, technical lead guitar playing of Music/JeffLoomis, as well as frontman Warrel Dane's distinctively atonal and cynical singing style. Difficult to pigeonhole, the band tends towards the darker, more instrumentally complex sides of progressive music - though chaotic and heavy enough to compete with the most aggressive of thrash bands, they retain many more progressive aspects such as acoustic segments, classically influenced guitar arrangements and Dane's vocal delivery.
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3	Vocalist Warrel Dane and bassist Jim Sheppard founded the band. They were veterans of Sanctuary, more or less a power metal group with thrash influences. Guitarist Jeff Loomis had recently quit a death metal band because he was sick of the [[HarshVocals vocal approach]], and was accompanied by Guitarist Pat O'Brien, who would later quit to join Music/CannibalCorpse (his favorite band).
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5	The band released their first album, ''[[SelfTitledAlbum Nevermore]]'', in 1995. They then became more progressive with the sophomore effort ''The Politics of Ecstasy'', but otherwise, things remained the same.
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7	''Dreaming Neon Black'' took the progressive instrumentation of ''[=TPoE=]'' and toned it down a bit, but the lyrics became far more ambitious. The album is a ConceptAlbum, with lyrics about Dane's girlfriend, who got involved and a religious cult and is now missing.
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9	However, the band's signature sound didn't settle until the release of ''Dead Heart in a Dead World'' in 2001, when Loomis busted out the detuned 7-string guitars and increased the pervasiveness of the Black and Death influences in their sound. However, the album was not without it's [[SubduedSection softer moments]], and whilst these moments are generally agreed to fit on the record (and ballad "Believe In Nothing" is even a fan favorite), 2003's ''Enemies of Reality'', the follow-up, is usually considered their heaviest album overall.
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11	Then, the band went for contrast. The result is 2005's ''This Godless Endeavor'', which has soft moments again (The first halves of "Sentient 6", "A Future Uncertain", and the TitleTrack), but the heavy parts of the album (everything else) got even heavier. This album made many Metal Magazines "Top X Albums of the Year" and "Top X Albums of the Decade" lists.
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13	Then they toured for it. And toured for it. [[CapcomSequelStagnation And toured for it]].
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15	The intense workout they got from having to play all those songs night after night led to their most recent effort, ''The Obsidian Conspiracy'', which, whilst still plenty [[SlidingScaleofIdealismVsCynicism cynical]] and heavy, is becoming regarded as something of a BreatherEpisode.
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17	It would've been interesting to see where the band went next: Softer? Heavier? More progressive? [[SerialEscalation Even lower guitar tunings?]] But then Loomis and drummer Van Williams quit, to the fans' dismay.
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19	Singer Warrel Dane and bassist Jim Sheppard were left as the only current members of Nevermore, and both were concentrating on the reunion of Sanctuary. Loomis was even busier, juggling a solo career, the progressive metal supergroup Conquering Dystopia, and, as of recent, Music/ArchEnemy, while Williams has largely retired from music outside of Ashes of Ares, which tours irregularly. Dane had hinted that a Nevermore reunion was very likely, but it would probably be without Loomis and Williams; Attila Voros, however, would likely be one of the new inductees. As of December 2017, whatever hope remained is gone, as Warrel Dane passed away as the result of a heart attack.
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21	!!'''Discography:'''
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23	* ''[[SelfTitledAlbum Nevermore]]'' (1995)
24	* ''The Politics of Ecstasy'' (1996)
25	* ''Dreaming Neon Black'' (1999)
26	* ''[[NewSoundAlbum Dead Heart in a Dead World]]'' (2000)
27	* ''Enemies of Reality'' (2003)
28	* ''This Godless Endeavor'' (2005)
29	* ''The Obsidian Conspiracy'' (2010)
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31	----
32	!Tropes associated with Nevermore:
33	* AlbumTitleDrop: All of their albums, however, the words "Neon Black" were dropped into the lyrics of their cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence".
34	* TheAlcoholic: Dane and Sheppard became infamous for excessive drinking, and it's been all but confirmed as one of the bigger reasons why Loomis and Williams left. Coupled with diabetes, it was also what ultimately led to Dane's tragic death.
35	* BalladOfX: "Timothy Leary" from self-titled.
36	* ConceptAlbum: ''Dreaming Neon Black'' is about a man who slowly goes insane when the woman he once loved joins a religious group and cuts ties with him. Dane goes on: "Progressive levels of insanity are expressed in the songs, he goes through phases of denial and self-blame, blaming God, then denouncing God. The ending is a little...tragic, a little depressing. Shakesperian. Everybody dies, [[SarcasmMode it's all happy]]."
37	* CoverVersion: "The Sound of Silence" subverts this, as the lyrics are the same, but the music is all original. (See InTheStyleOf below)
38	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: This happens to everything from ''Dreaming Neon Black'' backwards if someone listens to anything from [[NewSoundAlbum ''Dead Heart in a Dead World'']] onward first. The first three albums are best described as Progressive-Post-Thrash. Everything after is that, but cranked up to eleven. This can also apply to a few tracks on ''Nevermore'', which just sound like really heavy Grunge.
39	* EpicRocking: They have a few long songs - ''The Politics of Ecstasy'' and ''This Godless Endeavor'' both have notably extensive title tracks.
40	* FreeHandedPerformer: Warrel Dane, known for his classical opera training and deep baritone voice, was exclusively a vocalist. He took full advantage of being free-handed, however, being very animated on stage, often slinking to the ground and even singing from his back.
41	* GenreBusting: A weird case in that while their sound isn't exactly oblique, they still don't really fit into any one genre. Thrash metal, progressive metal, power metal, djent, and death metal all blur together into something that is fairly accessible, but still very, very difficult to pigeonhole. Most people refer to them as progressive metal and leave it at that.
42	* HarshVocals: Considering the Extreme metal influences on everything in the post-''Dead World''-era, this is surprisingly averted. Played straight on "Born" from ''This Godless Endeavor''.
43	* IconicItem: Loomis' signature red Schecter C7 FR (he also owns and occasionally uses a C7 Hellraiser and a C7 Blackjack, but the signature model is what he usually uses for live appearances as of now).
44	* InTheStyleOf: [[OverlyLongGag "The Sound]] [[Music/SimonAndGarfunkel of Silence"]] [[SelfDemonstratingArticle In the Style of Nevermore!]]
45	* LargeHam: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go_UibhfCn0 Warrel.]]
46	* {{Matricide}}: The title of one of the songs on the ''In Memory'' EP. It is actually a song about how humanity is killing Mother Earth, rather than actually about someone killing their actual mother.
47	* MetalScream: Dane's been known to pull off a few of the high wails, though they were more common in his Sanctuary days. Recent Nevermore material occasionally showcases more harsh, aggressive vocalization bordering on the kind displayed in extreme metal.
48	* NewSoundAlbum: ''Dead Heart in a Dead World''. The next album, ''Enemies of Reality'', goes up to eleven. ''This Godless Endeavor'' [[SerialEscalation does the exact same thing]] to ''Enemies of Reality''.
49	* PowerMetal: They have been associated with the genre, but it's debatable if they are, and if they are at all, they are far more popular among fans of extreme metal than most power metal bands as well as far heavier.
50	* ProtestSong: [[BuffySpeak A lot of their stuff.]]
51	* ReligionRantSong: The whole of ''Dreaming Neon Black'', for starters, due to its RealLife basis of Warrel Dane's ex-girlfriend joining a religious group and ceasing contact with him, and he subsequently had nightmares about her calling for him as she drowned (she and her husband were discovered to be victims of a serial killer years later). Beyond that, there's "Who Decides?", "This Godless Endeavor", "Believe In Nothing", etc.
52	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Warrel's lyrics can border on {{anvilicious}}ly cynical, which fits the band's generally dark tone.
53	* SelfBackingVocalist: Who ELSE can back Warrel Dane? They use samples live for him to harmonize to.
54	* SelfTitledAlbum: Their debut album.
55	* TakeThat: Their {{Protest Song}}s are usually [[FramingDevice framed]] as this towards government, religion, and the advance of technology.
56	* TalkToTheFist: Dane was on the receiving end of this from Billy Milano (Stormtroopers of Death, M.O.D.). The actual reason is still up in the air; some accounts allege that Dane was drunk, depressed, and generally having a bad night and that Milano told him to “stop whining” before punching him, while others allege that Dane was [[CantHoldHisLiquor piss drunk and acting like an asshole]], and that Milano had been the target of significant amounts of verbal abuse and finally decided to do something about it. Some facts are consistent, however: Dane was drunk, Milano punched him, the police were called, and Milano was hauled off.
57	* UncommonTime: Inevitable for a prog metal act. While not as extreme as some, they've pulled off some tricky examples, such as the main riff to "Psalm of Lydia".
58	* WhamEpisode: Jeff and Van quitting.
59	* WhyWeCantHaveNiceThings: Back around the first few years of the band, Warrel Dane owned a restaurant in Seattle. After he came back from a tour in support of ''Dreaming Neon Black'', he returned to his day job to find that his staff had robbed him blind, with over ''17 kegs'' and untold thousands of dollars of liquor having been pilfered. This led to him quitting his day job, leaving the restaurant business for good, and focusing all of his efforts on music.
60	* WordSaladTitle: "Dreaming Neon Black" amongst many, many others.
61	* WordSaladLyrics: Warrel Dane's attempts to put together cryptic but meaningful lyrics fail sometimes.

Context Music / Nevermore