Arise and Purirfy

[Traxan]

I was never really into Sanctuary; it was cool and all but it wasn't my thing. I really latched onto NM, and this new Sanctuary album, at least what I've heard, has me excited like I was for NM back in the day.

I knew of Sanctuary back in the 80s but never heard them, tbh. I am, however, interested in this album.

As I've said before, I first saw Nevermore in 2000 when I went to see their opening act, In Flames. This was before they started sucking. I remember being at the merch table (The Key Club, West Hollywood) and looking at the DHiaDW t-shirts and wondering 'who the hell is Nevermore?' I had no idea until Warrel came out. Yeah he had a rather distinct look back then. I though, ok, that's the dude from Sanctuary.

 

[Det Som Engang Var]

Nevermore has been fucking garbage since Godless Endeavor.

Suck my viking dick if you don't like my opinion.

 

[Traxan]

I didn't know we had vikings in Houston.

They only did one album post-TGE anyway. It's not like they had years of sucking hard like In Flames.

 

[El Stormo]

I didn't know we had vikings in Houston.

They don't, but he drove past a Danish guy once.

Anyway, all of this is personal opinion and pretty much moot. Personally, Dreaming Neon Black will always be my favourite album, not just because it was so dark, but also because lyrics and music form such a perfect unison that the other albums didn't have to such an extent. Every track has its meaning and purpose, and none of them are (lyrically) fillers. It's not just an album, it's a journey (sorry for the cliché). The other Nevermore albums were still awesome pieces of music, but to me personally, no Nevermore album, and very few metal albums in general, can come close to Dreaming Neon Black. I'd rank it even above Operation: Mindcrime, though I'm aware that there will be people who disagree with me on that.

And John, why do you always have the need to stand out with such exaggerated statements? The fact that you're presenting your opinion as fact, and immediately denouncing anyone who thinks otherwise is bad enough, but it's always such inflated extremes with you. It's never, "I didn't like" or "I was disappointed with", no, it's always "it's fucking garbage" or "fuck this guy". You're a cool guy, John, but you keep doing yourself injustice with this kind of tough-guy shit.

 

[Pitiless Wanderer]

El Stormo why are you so nice? He isn't a "cool guy", he's a rude, nerdy, pathetic little pile of shit. His exaggerations are not just always wrong, but straight bizarre. "Baby metal is better than Sigh". Yea, sure. "Vulture Industries is the best band of the past decade." Ok. "Nevermore has fucking sucked since TGE." What an annoying little geek he is. Quit being so nice to him. he needs to get his ass kicked.

 

[lorinc]

Anyway, all of this is personal opinion and pretty much moot. Personally, Dreaming Neon Black will always be my favourite album, not just because it was so dark, but also because lyrics and music form such a perfect unison that the other albums didn't have to such an extent. Every track has its meaning and purpose, and none of them are (lyrically) fillers. It's not just an album, it's a journey (sorry for the cliché). The other Nevermore albums were still awesome pieces of music, but to me personally, no Nevermore album, and very few metal albums in general, can come close to Dreaming Neon Black. I'd rank it even above Operation: Mindcrime, though I'm aware that there will be people who disagree with me on that.

Me too. Even the artwork makes one piece with the music.
The good news is WD keeps saying that TYTSD is close to DNB on that aspect. Let's hope that's true

El Stormo why are you so nice? He isn't a "cool guy", he's a rude, nerdy, pathetic little pile of shit. His exaggerations are not just always wrong, but straight bizarre. "Baby metal is better than Sigh". Yea, sure. "Vulture Industries is the best band of the past decade." Ok. "Nevermore has fucking sucked since TGE." What an annoying little geek he is. Quit being so nice to him. he needs to get his ass kicked.

It's called puberty. It goes away when you're grown up.

 

[El Stormo]

Me too. Even the artwork makes one piece with the music. The good news is WD keeps saying that TYTSD is close to DNB on that aspect. Let's hope that's true

I hope so too, but even though I'm confident the album will be great, lightning rarely strikes twice, and since we now have expectations, it'll be even harder to compare to it. But let's hope so!

El Stormo why are you so nice? He isn't a "cool guy", he's a rude, nerdy, pathetic little pile of shit. His exaggerations are not just always wrong, but straight bizarre. "Baby metal is better than Sigh". Yea, sure. "Vulture Industries is the best band of the past decade." Ok. "Nevermore has fucking sucked since TGE." What an annoying little geek he is. Quit being so nice to him. he needs to get his ass kicked.

Come on, man. The reason I'm so nice, is because I know this persona isn't him. John just shoots off sometimes and makes these sweeping and highly questionable statements, but just because crazy shit comes out of someone's mouth sometimes doesn't mean he's a "pathetic nerdy pile of shit". It's easy to just sit there and judge based on purely external factors, but that shit doesn't help anyone. People who act this way are generally just insecure, and calling them names just reinforces this insecurity and makes them act more erratic. If John felt more at ease, he wouldn't take these extreme stances. The problem with this "he needs to get his ass kicked and straighten up" is that it usually brings out the worst in people rather than the best.

So, the reason I'm being so nice to him, is the same reason I'm responding nicely to you, even though I disapprove of your post: just judging you based on superficial impressions (your post makes you look like a bully) would be the easy thing to do for me, but I find it more constructive to explain what my reasoning is based on and to maybe show you a take on things you haven't seen yet. It's something I'm learning to do, I wasn't always like this, as you all know, but I'm working on it.

 

[Talking Backwards]

I know the band has been mentioned before, although it's been ages and some here might not even really know about them...but all this talk of DNB as well as "deserted island" albums, and I just couldn't help myself. They are bar none the best band that has ever been influenced by Sanctuary/Nevermore, and Conspiracy In Mind--the album as a whole--has some incredible atmosphere (it's not dark, but it's very palpable). So yeah, if you've never heard of this band, or listened to them, do yourself a favor and listen to their first two albums right now. Their third is pretty damn great too (it's the power/thrashiest of all in an Iced Earth way), but the fourth just suffers from some terribly self-produced production that muddies up the entire thing.







They have a lot of amazing songs, but the last two are probably my favorites.

 

[lorinc]

I know the band has been mentioned before, although it's been ages and some here might not even really know about them...but all this talk of DNB as well as "deserted island" albums, and I just couldn't help myself. They are bar none the best band that has ever been influenced by Sanctuary/Nevermore, and Conspiracy In Mind--the album as a whole--has some incredible atmosphere (it's not dark, but it's very palpable). So yeah, if you've never heard of this band, or listened to them, do yourself a favor and listen to their first two albums right now. Their third is pretty damn great too (it's the power/thrashiest of all in an Iced Earth way), but the fourth just suffers from some terribly self-produced production that muddies up the entire thing.

I've never been into Communic, mainly because of the voice (you can clearly see the Dane/Tate influence in the style, but the lines are somehow not fitting the music to my ears) and the structure of the songs which I always found illogical (oddly enough, it's something that has often be said of my own music, so it's definitely a matter of taste I guess).

Speaking of Nevermore/Sanctuary influenced bands, there also Shatter Messiah. Their first 2 albums are streaming on bandcamp:
http://shattermessiah.bandcamp.com/album/never-to-play-the-servant
http://shattermessiah.bandcamp.com/album/god-burns-like-flesh
Given that Curran Murphy toured with NM, it's logical that it sounds a bit like NM. But hey, their is only one Warrel Dane, and that's what makes NM so unique.

 

[Talking Backwards]

Yeah, I have the Shattered Messiah albums as well as Twelfth Gate. Neither band really does it for me though. Speaking of vocals that don't seem to go along with the music; that's the primary reason I can't get into Shatter Messiah. They sound like a bizarre combination of Dio and Bobby Blitz and are seemingly being sung via an entirely different genre.

 

[Det Som Engang Var]

Shatter Messiah sucked after the first album, which ruled, because they changed to 7 strings.

Communic is great. Listen to "Stone Carved Eyes" heaviest riff ever.

 

[rebirth]

Hard evidence is needed stop this whiny ...
And get in to the other matters of legacy

 

[rebirth]

Cool about those bands - some thing to hunt for

 

[El Stormo]

The first three Communic releases were great, but The Bottom Deep just didn't do it for me. I don't really know why, but it wasn't just the production. The songwriting was kinda lackluster as well. And Shatter Messiah, I love the vocals, and the music's great too, it's just that I'm tired of the fact that EVERY song on EVERY album is about Christianity and how evil it is. Guys, seriously, we get it, you had to sit through Sunday school when your friends were out seeing movies and it mentally scarred you so much you had to write songs about it ten years later. We get it.

 

[Traxan]

The first three Communic releases were great, but The Bottom Deep just didn't do it for me. I don't really know why, but it wasn't just the production. The songwriting was kinda lackluster as well. And Shatter Messiah, I love the vocals, and the music's great too, it's just that I'm tired of the fact that EVERY song on EVERY album is about Christianity and how evil it is. Guys, seriously, we get it, you had to sit through Sunday school when your friends were out seeing movies and it mentally scarred you so much you had to write songs about it ten years later. We get it.

Better stay away from Epica, then. Same shit there.

 

[Shpongled]

I dig the fuck out of Communic, but as has already been said, their last few albums aren't what their first couple are. I feel like they never really progressed or got any better after their first few albums and didn't try to push the envelope, which in turn made their newer stuff a bit redundant. I think their newer albums as a whole aren't remarkable, but they do each have a few stand out tracks. I also think their songwriting has gotten a bit boring and very repetitive. And the lyrics.... holy shit the cheese is heavy with this band, even from day 1. I'll never ever, ever be able to take their lyrics seriously when the guy "rhymes" a verse by using the same exact word THREE times. Fucking get real dude... from "They Feed On Our Fear":

Never out in the light
Afraid to die in the morning light
To dust they crumble if
They're touched by the daylight

Anyways, as I said, their newer albums have a few gems:

From Payment of Existence:



And from The Bottom Deep. I dig this song and the bridge section takes me all the back to Conspiracy in Mind. Great riffs and vocals:



Overall a very cool band and Oddleif's vocals are certainly top tier.

 

[Talking Backwards]

A very long time ago, my best friend (who is an amazing vocalist) told me that lyrics are one of the least important aspects when it comes to vocals. I didn't really understand what he was talking about then, but he's right. That's not to take anything away from those who can sing great and pen some masterful lyrics at the same time, but most people just care about the vocalist's vocal ability and how the lyrics are sung with the music. Pretty much the entire Painkiller album is a good example of this. Most of the lyrics are borderline juvenile, but no one cares because of how utterly mind-blowing the vocals and music are.

I mean for fuck's sake, how many death vocals are actually decipherable?

As far as Communic's lyrics go, there wasn't anything that particularly stood out to me as something truly awful. On Payment of Existence however there were many songs that were truly repetitive in that area. One thing that has always kind of bothered me about Oddleif though is that sometimes he mispronounces words badly. You would think it was just his accent getting in the way, but that's not the case at all because he pronounces the syllables and consonants of other similar words (or even those same words!) flawlessly. Like for example on the song "On Ancient Ground", "Ancient Spirits" sounds like "Oraincient Spirits" and "On Ancient Ground" always sounds like "Ron Ancient Ground" and on many songs, simple words like "we" are pronounced "de", "those" as "doze", "it's" as "rits", "through" is "true" and "there" as "dere". And yet you can find songs where he says those same words perfectly.

And yeah, The Bottom Deep has a handful of good songs, but overall it just seems like their weakest output. The production isn't quite as bad as I remembered either. I think I heard it before I started listening to music with a lot higher quality hardware. Much of the music is just kind of dull compared to their previous offerings however and I think the atmosphere the changed production gave it doesn't compliment it much.

 

[El Stormo]

Better stay away from Epica, then. Same shit there.

Oh don't worry. I'll never even come close to Epica.

 

[Dead Winter]

Better stay away from Epica, then. Same shit there.

Hehe, I stay away from Epica in any case. Hot chicks can't save shitty metal, no matter how many of them there are today. That whole gothic/epic/female metal thing that refuses to die over the last 15 years is one of the things that's actually turning people OFF from female-fronted bands. Every time I see a female singer in a band, I automatically skip it because I know it's either some shitty metalcore wannabe Angela Gossow or it's just another crappy so-called "gothic" female fronted band (which couldn't be further from goth).

The Gathering is the only band who did it right.

 

[Talking Backwards]

Oh don't worry. I'll never even come close to Epica.

Awwww, no need to be that way. Although I technically only like one of their albums, I think Design Your Own Universe has some pretty killer tracks. You might consider giving it at least one listen if you haven't yet. To me it's somewhat of an outlier of an album for them, where they got pretty much everything right. Or who knows, maybe it's where they got everything wrong for Epica. In some ways this reminds me of Demonoid or Therion (Lemuria & Syrius B). I don't typically listen to "symphonic" metal. Nightwish was about the only band I could ever get in to like that, and even then I had to be in the mood.