Review by Rexorcist for Nevermore - Dreaming Neon Black (1999)
Having to complete a book-reading challenge before the end of the year, I've been speedreading roughly a book a day, and listening to albums helps me focus. So once again I'm going through asstons of music and occasionally checking out some metal. This time I'm going on a Nevermore marathon. I've put them off for too long, but I have heard the first two albums before. So now I begin their heyday with Dreaming Neon Black. Don't worry. I can focus on both at the same time, and even absorb both types of vibes when I properly hone my autism.
Looking back on my review for the previous album, The Politics of Ecstasy, I made several comments on their range. I think there's a bit less of that here, though. This time, Nevermore's focused on creating a consistent sound for themselves. Everything is just dark enough to work, except where the singer is concerned. He's got some serious range and power about him in the melody and metallic energy departments. The second half of the album has some gothic undertones which match up with his voice even more than before. There's little variety save a goth rock song at the end and a doom metal song called The Lotus Eaters. I would prefer more variety, even at the level of The Dreadful Hours or in an extreme case, When the Kite String Pops, so the album risks feeling too long. There's a deeper groove metal tone in the guitars which manages to put itself in the world of thrash perfectly well, obviously because of the band's previous experience in that world. But does this make it a unique album? No, not really. Thrash and groove have gone hand in hand for a long time, and lots of prog albums of the time were taking a deeper and darker approach. Add this to the two different songs, it tells me they could've done so much more.
In the end, one factor kind of fails for the genre, despite being new to Nevermore. So what's left? Technicality, production, yadda yadda. And I can't deny that I had fun throughout the whole album. There wasn't a single melody or riff that I wasn't at least fairly impressed with. And much of the album's darker tone comes from a more prominent bass, which is extremely easy to hear thanks to the album's production. Both are going hand in hand perfectly, about as perfectly as I want when you put the two together in any band. Because you can hear everyone so clearly, this amplifies all the emotional vibes present, in spite of the samey tone of the album.
Basically, every song was great on its own merits, and it's about as proggy as a Rush album, allowing thrash fans an easy yet properly-shifting entry-point to prog. if you're gonna do an easy-to-digest prog album, this is how to do it. But its accessibility also gets in the way of maximizing the variety factor, so it's a bit overlong. They could've done more with this, but it's obvious that they were focusing on their identity, which still succeeds here. I'm glad I decided to continue on with Nevermore, but contrary to popular opinion, I'd have to say The Politics of Ecstasy is slightly better.