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Nevermore > Dead Heart in a Dead World > Reviews > PhillCantu93
Nevermore - Dead Heart in a Dead World

"Inconsistent" my ass - 89%

PhillCantu93, June 5th, 2010

To put Nevermore in a nutshell, they blend heavy metal with elements of thrash, power metal, progressive metal and groove metal. Warrel Dane has a vocal style similar to Geoff Tate from Queensryche; very operatic and powerful (often times criticized as "tortured" and "forced", by I myself disagree), and Jeff Loomis is the guitar genius behind it all.

Unlike the bands previous albums, this one features a bit cleaner production and utilizes seven-string guitars, something not done by the band before this album. The song writing is also a bit different, taking a penchant for longer, heavier songs with various groove-metal style riffs (those that are hellbent on being "truer than thou" might call it "nu metal" oriented, but whatever). In the end, however, the band still has the same style as they've always had; political lyrics backed up by an instrument section with influence from many styles of metal (this is often taken by some to be "inconsistency", but I fail to see how).

As much as I love this album, this is by far their weakest release to date. Yes, there are fan favorites such as the opening track "Narcosynthesis", "The River Dragon Has Come" and the semi-balled "Believe In Nothing", this album also contained some relatively weaker songs that seemed more like fillers to complete the 11-track listing (namely "We Disintegrate", "The Heart Collector", and even the title track, despite having a very heavy verse riff) rather than something they put heart and soul into. Some songs do a combination of putting you right in the feeling of the song AND making you wanna straight up head-bang, and others are just sort of there for the sake of being there, and are just average. For example, "The Heart Collector", in my opinion, is just some song loaded with mediocre riffs primarily comprised of basic five-seven chords with an average solo (which is hard to say about something done by Jeff Loomis). Immediately afterward, however, "Engines of Hate" provides a great opener followed by some brutal riffs that also create an atmosphere. So it's essentially a 50/50 album you're listening to here.

So if you're first getting into Nevermore, don't pick this up. Try "This Godless Endeavor" or "The Obsidian Conspiracy" if you want to start listening to them. Dead Heart In A Dead World is not a bad album at all, but by far their weakest. The songs are either fantastic or just average. The only reason I'm keeping the grade above 70 is because the average songs aren't necessarily "bad" in the sense of "this sucks", but they're exactly that; average.

Favorites: Narcosynthesis, Inside Four Walls, Evolution 169, The River Dragon Has Come, Engines of Hate, Believe In Nothing