NEVERDREAM – Said
 
Label: Twilight Zone Records
Release: June 18 2010
By: Joking
Rating: 8.5/10
Time: 65:09
Style: Progressive Metal
URL: Neverdream
 

NEVERDREAM remain true to their concept connecting historiography with complex progressive metal. This idea might not be unique but in its consistent realization it can’t be appreciated high enough. No affairs boiled up again and again, no sky high flying payers to the Almighty, and also no benediction for his counterpart. No, after their view on the chemical fate of Christiane F. and the bitter analysis of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, NEVERDREAM dedicate themselves to the continent of Africa, its importance and its history between horror, violence and hope.

That could easily get out of hand in kitschy consternation but NEVERDREAM put it straight right from the beginning: they are serious about all that. The first minutes of Kinshasa are the heaviest NEVERDREAM have ever recorded. An anacrusis full of rage. But no dull thrashing rules the scenery. Suiting the topic the band ranges between emotions (yearning, hope) and blistering attacks (for violence as well as possible deliverance). Later on the pace levels off in mid-tempo fields. Fabrizio Dottoris saxophone - next to some idiosyncratic complexity THE trademark of NEVERDREAM - will again care for surprising and felicitous dots.
Offering Death Metal-like attacks up to jazzy trips Said sounds like all of a piece. The concept carries the music and the music the concept. Doing so NEVERDREAM sound original. Although the media info offers the usual suspicious (Pain Of Salvation, Dream, Theater, Porcupine Tree, Katatonia), the Roman sextet speaks with an own voice, which was already existing on Chemical Faith and has consequently developed from this point on.

Those who appreciate King Crimson, are not loath of Pain Of Salvation and have a weakness for opulent keyboards as well as a certain amount of (legitimate) pathos may take Said to heart and player. And might furthermore be pleased about the fact that NEVERDREAM have finally found a label home. Time to get off the grid with full force…