WARREL DANE

Shadow Work

CENTURY MEDIA Late Nevermore/Sanctuary singer shines on posthumous tribute When Warrel Dane passed away after suffering a heart attack last year, the Nevermore and Sanctuary frontman – one of the genre’s most singular vocalists – was in the midst of recording his second solo album, a workin-progress he described as “brutal thrash/death/ prog/speed metal”. To the credit of his surviving bandmates and others who worked to shepherd the album to release, Shadow

Work – which mines Dane’s vocals from demos and early studio sessions – might be unfinished, but it doesn’t sound incomplete. Although the fierce musicianship recalls the complexity and militaristic precision of Nevermore, it’s Warrel’s dramatic baritone and trademark vibrato – and, on Madame

Satan, even a few guttural growls – that give this material its distinctive personality. A vital and essential final entry to a remarkable discography.