NEVERMORE — The Obsidian Conspiracy (review)

NEVERMORE — The Obsidian Conspiracy album cover

Album · 2010 · Thrash Metal

3.5/5 · 2010-06-25
Stephen

"The Obsidian Conspiracy" is the seventh album of Nevermore, maintaining the "Godless" line up and bringing Peter Wichers (ex-Soilwork) to handle the production and engineering and to collaborate with Andy Sneap from the mixing department. This album also marked their first album to penetrate the Billboard 200 charts and that's a big achievement from a non-mainstream band.

Nevermore has been known to incorporate many elements but on this album, they've tried to unleash a more straight-forward composition by putting a thrashy power metal style to the front and slow down the implementation of progressive and complex structure. "The Termination Proclamation" with its brutal riffs in an uptempo corridor and rebellious yell with heavy riffs of "Your Poison Throne" made a promising start. "Moonrise" pumped the tempo up with some incinerating riffs and dynamic tempo, this is my first fave track of the album. "Emptiness Unobstructed" is quite obvious to be their first single, this is a midtempo and accessible metal track with a wonderful sing-along chorus, definitely their best moment here. Another fave tracks here are the thundering "Without Morals" and the depressive gloomy ballad of "The Blue Marble".

Couple of songs have the potential such as the doomy "And The Maiden Spoke", it has a good chorus texture but the verse could have been better, and the title track, which probably their heaviest song here, is a great headbanging tune but unfortunately lack of something memorable, kicking this track down to decent status. The rest are okay, sometimes moody and can be boring, but I found this album is pretty good and a grower. Travis Smith also has done a marvelous job with the front cover, should have been one of his amazing works of 2010 together with Overkill's "Ironbound" and Heathen's "The Evolution of Chaos".

For me, this album works fine, can be a good starter for new fans, and also a heart-pleasing release for the old fans.

more than 2 years ago
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Stephen wrote:

more than 2 years ago

i haven't heard Dane's solo, yes i have mentioned their less-prog edge, and less hard I guess so, but i haven't heard all their disco, so I need to explore them later. Lookin forward to your review of this album, and please do so on "Dead heart", i see that you've rated it with 5, i need to know what i'm missing there, just in case :)

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

First of all I don´t enjoy the polished Peter Wichers production. I think he ruined Warrel Dane´s solo album and he does about the same here. Secondly the songs are not adventurous enough compared to the earlier albums. I miss the progressive edge that made the old albums so interesting. And the last thing is that I don´t think the album is as hard hitting as the older albums either. Disappointment all over. I´ll probably still rate the album with 3.5 stars when it becomes time to review it ( I´ve actually started writing the review, so I have a draft lying around), as a sub par Nevermore release is of course still a quality product.

Stephen wrote:

more than 2 years ago

is it because of the commercial approach or too straight forward ?
we're on the contrary position on "Dead Heart" and I don't find myself surprise about this one too :)

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Good review Stephen. I´m quite the big fan of Nevermore but so far this album has managed to bore me. I´m quite disappointed. The best track here for me is without a doubt "And The Maiden Spoke"