Artist: Nevermore
Title: “The Politics Of Ecstasy” (remaster)
Label: Century Media Records
Release Date: 9/5/2006
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 4/5

In celebration of their 15th Anniversary, Century Media Records has re-issued several remastered editions of their best artists. These releases find enhanced artwork and liner notes as well as bonus and unreleased tracks. One of these releases would be Nevermore’s “The Politics Of Ecstasy”. This second full Nevermore album would firmly show why this band was not to remain in the underground any longer and instead needed to be standing tall with the Heavy Metal superpowers of the day. Yet the music industry of 1996 (the albums original release year) was quite a chaotic one with attention still being paid to the “Seattle Sound” bands and groups like Marilyn Manson and Metallica holding strong onto the necks of the music buying public. Metallica would release “Load” the same year and I do not think I need to say more on this one, but suffice it to say it was stuff like this that kept groups like Nevermore from reaching more people based on all the attention being heaped on them. PoE is heavy in its Metal content as well as armed with a sharp-tongued political commentary on some tracks (“Seven Tongues Of God” and “Tiananmen Man”). There are also a couple of songs which have as fresh a sound today as when they were first released such as “Next In Line” and “The Sacrament” – Nevermore also proves they were able to tone it down with the effective “Passenger” (a crunching but slower-paced number that had a tremendous level of mood to it). The booklet provided includes expanded liner notes by Metal’s master scribe Martin Popoff who together with singer Warrel Dane give some insight to this album on the whole.
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