UMUR "This Godless Endeavor" is the 6th full-length studio album by US power/thrash metal act Nevermore. The album was released through Century Media Records in July 2005. It´s the successor to "Enemies of Reality" from 2003 and features one lineup change since the predecessor as Steve Smyth has joined as a second guitarist. Smyth was at the time fresh out of a stint touring with Testament, but he had also played with both Vicious Rumors and Dragonlord before that. It was always the band´s intention to have two guitarists in the lineup, but they struggled throughout their career to find a permanent solution to compliment Jeff Loomis, which meant that the guitar parts on several of Nevermore´s albums were solely recorded by Jeff Loomis (among them the two direct predecessors to this album).

"Enemies of Reality (2003)" was recorded on a relatively small budget, as a consequence of being the last album Nevermore owed Century Media Records under their original contract, and many fans/critics felt especially the production standards of the album weren´t up to par with the Andy Sneap produced "Dead Heart in a Dead World (2000)" ("Enemies of Reality (2003)" was produced by former Queensrÿche guitarist Kelly Gray). The situation created a bad working relationship between band and label and the recording and promotion of "Enemies of Reality (2003)" suffered from it (not that it´s a bad quality album by any means). Nevermore and Century Media Records were however able to patch up their differences and a new deal was signed, and Nevermore were able to bring back producer Andy Sneap for the recording of "This Godless Endeavor".

The change of producer is audible right from the first notes of opening track "Born". The dark, gritty, and raw sound production of the predecessor has been replaced by a clear, fat, and crushingly heavy sound production, which has Sneap´s signature written all over it. It´s an incredibly well sounding production and it´s hard to argue against Sneap and Nevermore being a match made in heaven...

Nevermore have released several strong albums in their career, but "This Godless Endeavor" stand as one of their crowning achievements. Not only is the sound production perfect for the music, the musicianship are also on an incredibly high level on all posts. The drumming is strong, organic, and powerful, the bass is heavy and helps drive the music forward, and the guitars produce one killer riff and blazing shredding solo after another, while lead vocalist Warrel Dane sings his paatos filled and powerful vocals with great passion and bite. The music can be labelled the most thrashy and heavy US power metal you´ve ever heard, or US power metal influenced thrash metal with a great heavy groove. It´s both heavy and fast, and both edgy and more melodic. The icing on the cake are the intelligent and thought provoking lyrics dealing with subjects like religion, philosophy, society, and artificial intelligence. The latter subject matter is dealt with on "Sentient 6" which is one of the album highlights. It´s an unconventional and actually quite progressive power ballad (or at least it opens in powel ballad fashion), which opens with ominous sounding piano notes and Dane telling a story about a sentinent who´s mission it is to kill humanity, but at the same time it envies human´s ability to dream, because it longs to be more than a machine. About half way through the track, it gets both very heavy, but also very epic.

Other tracks on the album deserving a special mention are "Final Product" (the lyrics dealing with the commercial exploitation of a dead celebrity) and the closing 8:55 minutes long multi suite title track, but there´s nothing on the album which is sub par, and it is one of those very rare albums where every track is of a high quality and feels right on the tracklist. "This Godless Endeavor" is just through and through a high quality release and it has definite "album of the year" potential. Upon conclusion a 5 star (100%) rating is deserved.

The Angry Scotsman Nevermore's Magnum Opus

This album is the bands greatest work, and one of the best metal albums I've encountered. Got this album when it came out in 2005 and it was the first time I heard the name Nevermore. I was blown away. The music floored me, and this was also one of my earliest introductions to progressive metal, at a time when I was solely a thrash and death metal head. "This Godless Endeavor" had a major impact on me personally and is an amazing album.

This album is an amalgam of all the band's styles, in a perfectly blended and composed masterpiece. Dubbed "progressive power neo-classical thrash metal" by some of us, this album has it all, but never sounds crammed together or sounds off. It all works together seamlessly, built around lightning fast and crazy guitar work, intense drumming and Dane's unique vocals, (which take on an even more hard edge here and showcase some dark, lower register tones). All of it tempered with progressive song writing and sprinkled with neo classical shred solos. The drumming is amazing, largely European power style chains of double bass, (sometimes at breakneck speed) but also with lots of thrash and healthy heaps of blast beats! Van Williams puts on a good show of extreme drumming, but also great variation. Sometimes melodic, technical, exotic, off tempo, often changing on a dime and always fitting of the music. To this day, one of my favorite drumming performances.

The lyrics are dark: often bleak and bitter criticisms of the media, technology, a drugged up (erm medicated) society, government, religion and humanity in general. Thankfully they are never corny or come off as angry tirades. Though anger is deeply flowing, it's tempered with intriguing vocabulary, (this is metal after all) and vague stanzas that require some thought. Nice change from the unrestrained and amateurish anger often hurled at us from metal bands. "Sentient 6" is about some type of AI being designated to destroy humanity but grows conflicting feelings of inspiration and contempt for humanity. "My Acid Words" ends on a powerful note with Dane bellowing out "It's a one way ride and there's nothing you can do! Not even suicide or my acid words can teach you, anything useful..." One of the more crushing parts of the album.

Every song is good, so I will just say listen to the album. In fact, every song is great, with "Bittersweet Feast" being a tad weaker than the rest. Now it is a good song, but just not quite the standard of the rest. Besides that song, this is a truly perfect album, and without it this would be flawless, probably getting a spot on my mantle of 6 Star Albums.

Besides each song being great, they are each unique and the album has good flow, starting off intense before moving into a more mellow, progressive section and rising back up to bludgeon back home. The album ends with the 9 minute prog metal piece "This Godless Endeavor" that is one of my all time favorite songs.

It's always been my opinion that the best bands are those who truly progress, maintaining but taking steps forward tweaking and refining, rather than "experimenting" by taking wild stabs in the dark or risky and drastic swings. The former is what Nevermore has done culminating in this brilliant piece of progressive metal.

Masterpiece FIVE STARS

NJCat_11 For the safety of others, please refrain from using sharp objects or otherwise lethal items while listening to this album. ;^)

Packed tight with bone crushing guitar riffs, cosmic drumming complete with adrenaline-racing double bass, and the prophetic voice of Warrel Dane, this album is downright colossal. In fact, "This Godless Endeavor", along with Nile's "Annihilation of the Wicked", is one of my favorite releases from the year 2005. And to this day, it hasn't lost any its appeal.

There isn't a single song here that doesn't blow my mind. My personal favorites are: "My Acid Words", "A Future Uncertain", and the epic title track "This Godless Endeavor"; however, each and every song in between those mentioned above is a masterpiece in its own right.

Metal Masterpiece!