Enemies Of Reality is arguably Nevermore’s most controversial effort, mainly due to the muddy production by Kelly Gray (Queensryche). At the time the band had many struggles with their record company, which shines through in the material of this album. Let’s take a closer look.
On Enemies Of Reality the band take the blueprint of their previous album to a more technical level. This is certainly the case with the increased amount of guitar solos by Jeff Loomis and a more dramatic vocal performance by Warrel Dane, mainly on I Voyager, Who Will Decide and Tomorrow Turned Into Yesterday.
The album begins with the title track, which is also the most aggressive song on it and is full of guitar leads by Jeff Loomis. This is closely followed by Ambivalent and Never Purify. The aggression and power of these songs are greatly curtailed by lack of punch on the guitars and bass and an incredibly thin drum sound. The same problem plagues I Voyager, which is one of my favorite Nevermore songs to this day.
Unfortunately Enemies Of Reality has its share of lesser inspired moments as well. This is certainly the case with Who Decides, Noumenon and Seed Awakening. The latter song is Jeff Loomis’ attempt to perform a death metal styled song in a Nevermore setting. It’s not a bad song, but it doesn’t fit the context of the album. Noumenon is a weird ambient styled sounds cape and Who Decides is another power ballad I could perfectly do without.
As stated before the main problem of this album is the flawed production by Kelly Gray. Enemies of Reality also has its share of less memorable moments. Even if you get the remixed version of this album by Andy Sneap, it remains a mixed bag.
Written by Raymond Westland
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