Warrel Dane: Praises to the War Machine
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A couple of weeks ago I picked up a copy of Nevermore front man Warrel Dane's first solo release. I had been following news about the recording process for some time from various sites, including Dane's own webpage, so the cd wasn't completely new to me. Ever since the Dreaming Neon Black tour way back in 2000, I've been completely hooked on these guys, and having had the fortunate chance to meet them on a few occasions, I have a huge amount of respect the Seattle based group. So, naturally, as soon as I hear a member of the band is working on a solo album, I start picturing some potentially awesome material... |
...but then I hear that the guitar work is being done by Peter Wichers, the ex-Soilwork guitar front man. Here are the possibilities with this scenario:
- Wichers will write some intense shredding, similar to The Chainheart Machine days of Soilwork and we'll end up with Nevermore + Thrash
- Wichers will write music that sounds similar to the his last few albums with Soilwork and we'll end up with Stabbing the Drama, Warrel Style
- Wichers will continue his decent into absolute unoriginal and uninspired garbage guitar writing and continues to be 100% certifiably generic and boring... with some Warrel on top
Yes folks, #3, we have a winner! The potential for this album was huge, but instead we end up with the same overplayed and rehashed sound he's been beating to death for a few years now. This was exactly the worry I had when I first heard Warrel had teamed up with him for this solo project. Soilwork had been in my elite list of bands with the release of their first couple of albums and then all went to shit with this sudden nu-metal trend they have been stuck on pointlessly. Wichers, unfortunately, has obviously been part of this change in sound.
In a nutshell, what we have with Praises to the War Machine is an album that had great potential and ended up being easily forgettable. I tried my hardest to really get into it, but in the end I kept getting bored half way through. It just refuses to grow on you no matter how much you play it and really just ends up being another mediocre release. For the most part, Warrel's singing is actually very good, it just doesn't get the backing it deserves. Compared to Nevermore this release is amateur hour and just makes your miss Jeff Loomis even more.
Speaking of which, the highlight for me on the entire album is probably Jeff Loomis' guest solo on Messenger. There are some catchy bits here and there that might spark interest and give you what you were looking for, such as the last track Equilibrium, but overall the album is pretty weak and easily forgettable.
Comments
I actually thought this was
I actually thought this was decent.
I'm glad it wasn't just like any other Nevermore album.
This is actually, more or less, exactly what I was expecting.
Simpler music for Warrel's vocals to shine. You can tell he definitely wanted to focus on more goth rock influences like Bahaus, Fields of Nephilim and Sisters of Mercy and veer away from the thrash metal sound of Nevermore.
I don't listen to this too much, but I think it is good for what it was, and shows Warrel at his best.
In honesty, I haven't enjoyed a Nevermore album fully since Dead Heart in a Dead World, mostly for three reasons.
1. the plastic production of andy sneap (which is made even harder to swallow by the fact that Dreaming Neon Black is my favorite production job ever in metal)
2. Jeff Loomis learning to shred and forgetting about everything that made his sound memorable before practicing sweep picking for hours on tour.
3. Warrel's vocal melodies sounding all samey.
If nothing else, I like that Warrel really took the time and focused on making memorable melodies on this album.
The songs are short, simplistic and catchy. Nothing special, but not a bad listen.
Loomis solo is coming about soon, I'm mostly interested because the mighty neil kernon is producing and there are some cool guests (like Ron from Spastic Ink)
should be a good one.
maybe.
Yeah, you were definitely
Yeah, you were definitely always more into the raw production sound then I was. Although, I agree that Dreaming Neon Black is still one of the best albums ever. That is the one album that used to tear the shit out of my car speakers and the coolest way possible. Loomis' new one will hopefully be decent, but I am sucker for Andy Sneap style sound.
"Praises to the War Machine" isn't horrible to me, it just feels totally generic. Of course, Warrel is the last thing from an unoriginal voice, I just felt the music could have used a bit of a kick in the ass. Some of the songs I just skip right over which initially I wouldn't have guessed would have been the case. Oh well... it's still good to throw on every once in awhile.
yeah, I used to love when the
yeah, I used to love when the palm muting in "Death of Passion" comes in and the speaker start to fall apart.
I actually found an explanation for it on Kernon's message boards where he discusses albums he's done.
"As far as the end result, I don't have any issues with it, because as yet I've never encountered the problems others have mentioned on any of my systems. The album was mastered in HDCD which potentially is a louder mastering process than the normal 16 bit process, so I can only presume that some systems couldn't handle the extra volume generated by the 24 bit mastering process, producing some weird distortion or something.
Other people have talked about this about DNB. This was the only Nevermore album to use HDCD technology for the mastering, which allows a 24bit signal to reside in a 16bit disc, and when the 24 bit flags are detected by the HDCD chip in the CD/DVD player the program is then expanded to it's original fidelity. The only issue with this is that the disc ends up being a little hotter and so on some equipment clipping has been noticed. On newer gear with more headroom built in, apparently those artifacts are not noticeable. I've never heard them myself, but I know that others have commented on the album distorting their systems at times. It's a shame, and I hold myself accountable as it was my decision to use the HDCD process, which I have used many times for the mastering of my albums over the years (since 1998 in fact)."
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