NEVERMORE

The Year Of The Voyager

Century Media/ DVD

"The Year Of The Voyager is the first long awaited DVD of NEVERMORE. After a great success the band has achieved in recent years and overwhelmingly great response especially to their two last albums, DVD release has become almost a necessity. Why did it it take so long? Warrel Dane explains that in the interview featured on the second disc of „The Year Of The Voyager”. "The time had to be right, the situation had to be right and finally we came to that place when we were comfortable enough with our live performance to film a show. And we were given the opportunity to do that ..."

The first disc features a show the band played in Bochum, Germany in October 11 (2006). It was actually the last stop of their European tour promoting „Godless Endeavor” album. The main menu contains intro plus 20 selected tracks from NEVERMORE's output. Of course, the set list didn't cover all their best tracks, nevertheless the show itself was simply amazing! Despite tiredness the band was able to finish the tour with an excellent performance. Big respect! First of all, Jeff Loomis once again has proven himself to be an excellent live guitarist, his self-control and amazing technical skills connected with vigorous headbanging are definitely notable here. On the right flank we have Chris Broderick who appeared on that show as a second guitarist (some other performances included in that DVD feature also Steve Smyth and Curran Murphy on second guitars). Excellent work of rhytmical section represented by bassist Jim Sheppard and Van Williams on drums. And of course Warrel Dane, who is not only one of the best vocalists on the contemporary metal scene, but also- no doubt- a great frontman. The beginning of "Dead Heart In A Dead World", when he sang a'capella some verses of the text was definitely a magical experience. Sitting in front of my TV I got shivers, really.

On the disc number two we can find a bunch of official videoclips for such songs as "What Tomorrow Knows", "Next In Line", "Believe In Nothing", "I, Voyager", "Enemies Of Reality", "Final Product", "Born" and "Narcosynthesis". There 2nd disc includes also two tracks from a show in Canada (Gigantour, 2005), four pieces recorded in Poland (Metalmania, 2006), four tracks from Wacken Open Air (Germany, 2006) and two archive cuts from Century Media 10th Anniversary Party (USA, 2001). And of course, there's also a short, aforementioned interview with Warrel (wearing a Maxim cap), concerning DVD content mainly. In addition, image and sound quality (blessed by mighty Andy Sneap himself) is high enough to feel this incredible energy of NEVERMORE's live shows.

Although "The Year Of The Voyager" contains a lot of great stuff, I still find this DVD incomplete in some way. I would love to watch here also a documentary movie, covering last two years of touring the world, something from a backstage perspective, interviews with the other band's members, fans, stuff like that. It's not a bad DVD at all, but I'm a bit disappointed with total lack of that kind of "extra bonuses". From such a great band I expected something more. For all NEVERMORE diehard fans it's still a compulsory purchase.