Dead Heart In A Dead World

Nevermore never quite fit into any scene – some thrash, some groove, some power metal, but hard to box them in. Hell, singer Warrell Dane and bassist Jim Sheppard dissolved their previous outfit, Sanctuary, a decade earlier because they didn’t want to go grunge. Despite that, there’s a lot of their native Seattle in here as, like spiritual peers Queensryche and Savatage, they use their operatic approach to tackle real-world issues like the War on Drugs and religious hypocrisy. Jeff Loomis’s nimble fingers anchor songs like “Narcosynthesis” and power ballad “The Heart Collector.”