Sanctuary of Nevermore

The year was either 1990 or 1991 (so I was either 14 or 15 at the time). The place was a record store named "Forças Aliadas" (named after Triumph’s Allied Forces album). It was really just some house’s garage that the owners had lent to these two guys who wanted to have a record store. I used to go there every weekend, as it was a big hangout place for metalheads. We’d just hang in there, have some drinks, and listen to a lot of music. Just loved that!

There was this one time when I had just get paid (I was already working full time) and went to that place specifically looking for any new record. Fabio, one of the owners, and great guy, showed me this album and said "I think you’ll really like it". The album was Sanctuary’s Into the Mirror Black.

He also recommended another album: Annihilator’s Never, Neverland.I bought both, and really enjoyed it a lot. But in this post, I’ll focus on Sanctuary’s.

Everything in this album appealed to me: from the the cover artwork (with those trees, the old man, everything in shades of grey), through the music (the guitar work, the drumming, the bass lines), to the singing and lyrics. Everything just clicked perfectly with my taste. This album immediately became one of my top favorites at the time, and now, 25 years later, it is still one of the albums I still listen in its entirety very frequently.

Back then, I also when after their first album, Refuge Denied, which I also liked, but not as much as Mirror. I got so bummed when I heard the band split up, even more so due to the fact that it happened because of grunge music (which I hated!). Fortunately, Nevermore was created (which I’ve covered on the previous My Nevermore Top 10 List)!

Needless to say, I was stoked when Sanctuary got back together to play some shows and finally released a new album last year, which I dug a lot and hope they continue putting out new music!

#10: Battle Angels

As much as I enjoyed Warrel Dane’s high-pitched singing back then, I like the other parts of his extensive vocal range more. However, Battle Angels is such a classic, and I’ve headbanged so much to this tune, I had to add it to my list. :)

#9: Question Existence Fading

#8: Frozen

Another one of my favorites in their comeback album. I like the riffs and the drumming on this one. Again, simple yet good!

#7: Arise and Purify

Their comeback album's opening track. Got me hooked right away!

#6: Epitaph

#5: Eden Lies Obscured

Each song off this album just sends me back to a very specific time of my life. And I like it.

#4: White Rabbit

Great spin on an old Jefferson Airplane song!

#3: Taste Revenge

Catchy chorus, cool riffs… I remember learning this song on the guitar and playing it by myself, enjoying one of my favorite songs by these guys. I’ve had a blast in 2014 when Warrel Dane played this show at a gig in Brazil!

#2: Mirror Black

I really, really, really like this song. Once again, the lyrics resonate with me so much...

"I will show you your fears, just look into the mirror
In the mirror you might not like what you see
For the mirror reflects the fears that you feel"

#1: Future Tense

Big day for me. This song... what can I say about this song? One of my top favorite songs of ALL TIME!! For me, it's perfectly written, good guitar parts, good drumming, memorable guitar leads, great singing, and as usual, outstanding lyrics. Seriously, those lyrics are still as relevant as they were 25 years ago: "What do you see on the news when you watch TV? War in the name of God, and a playground killing spree.". I remember also being stoked watching its video at the time, which was right around the time MTV had started broadcasting in Brazil.

For your convenience, I’ve created a "Top 10 Sanctuary" Play List on YouTube. :)

What can I say about Nevermore? When Sanctuary broke up, I felt orphan. When a friend of mine asked me to sit down, handled over a CD, and showed to me that Warrel Dane and Jim Shepperd (former Sanctuary’s singer and bassist, respectively) were on it, I just couldn’t wait to listen to it. When I did, I was a happy person again. :)

This band took my appreciation of Sanctuary to a whole new level, and I have been a huge fan ever since. I have all of their albums, and to come up with a Top 10 list is such a tough job. But then again, much like I’ve done with my Metallica Top 10 List, I’ve picked the songs that bring me back great memories when I listen to them.

Unfortunately, Nevermore broke up. Fortunately, Sanctuary is back. As long as Warrel Dane and Jeff Loomis keep putting out good music, I’m good!

#10: What Tomorrow Knows

#9: The Seven Tongues of God

#8: Matricide

#7: Seed Awakening

With heavy riffs and pounding drums, this song is such a punch in your face!

#6: Narcosynthesis

I remember when this album came out. It wasn't available at the stores in Brazil yet, so I had to download it on a dial-up connection over night (when the connection was both cheaper and a little bit faster)... when I woke up the next day and this song was done downloading, I sat down comfortably so I could enjoy what I was about to hear; and was I happy with it!! This is another one of their songs with a perfect balance between heaviness, melody, and everything else that made Nevermore​ one of my top favorite bands. Oh, this song also reminds me going to their gig for the first time when they were touring this album in Brazil!

#5: Poison Godmachine

Amazing riffs! Heavy and intense. The lyrics, again, are top notch. The vocal delivery on "the empty soulless screen… soulless", specifically in the second "soulless". I can hear me saying that whenever I catch myself watching the news, and they go somewhat like this: "3-year old Syrian boy drowns… and now, soccer!"… Soulless!!!!

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#4: Beyond Within

This band has always had a special talent for choosing the best album opening and closing tracks. This song is the opener for my favorite album by them. I dig the heavy parts as much as I do the clean middle section. Nevermore has also always created parts where the rhythm guitar ends up being even more memorable than the lead guitar itself. Many bands usually just write wimpy rhythm for lead sections, but not Nevermore...

#3: Born

Born!! Fast, heavy, angry, melodic, the guitars, the drums, the vocals... this song is absolutely perfect. Masterpiece! And of course, lyrics are always outstanding: "If nothing in the world can change our children will inherit nothing".

#2: Dreaming Neon Black

The lyrics and the mood of this song have always talked to me, every since it came out, back in 1999. I could always relate it to an experience of my own, and I could also relate to the despair that comes through the vocal delivery, in lines such "my only cure, won’t you meet me?". Many crappy cheesy love songs have been written (did anybody say Bon Jovi?), but this one actually mean it.

#1: Forever

I think this song is heavy. Very heavy, regardless of the fact it doesn’t have drums or distorted guitars, and still, it sounds very heavy to me. Once again, the pain comes through the singing… "I'll meet you in the dreamtime, Whenever you call me…". My #1. Period.

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For your convenience, I’ve also created a "Top 10 Nevermore" Play List on youtube. :)

I grew up listening to a lot of old school heavy bands, such as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, etc. However, Metallica is probably the one that has had the bigger impact on me. All of their first albums (up to the Black Album) bring me back good memories. Among other things, I remember working and saving money to buy their LPs, and then when CD’s came out and I purchased my first CD player, along with the first four Metallica albums!

At one point, I learned to play several of their songs on the guitar. When the "Guitar Hero Metallica" came out I played drums to it through the whole thing, several times, for months. Lots of fun.

There’s a lot more great memories that this band’s music brings me, so it’s only fair I start "My Top 10" series with Metallica!

#10: Seek and Destroy

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#9: For Whom The Bell Tolls

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#6: …And Justice For All

#5: Master of Puppets

#4: The Four Horsemen

This song reminds of local bands playing it, and me and my friends going crazy over it… "The Horsemen are drawing nearer, On leather steeds they ride, They've come to take your life"…

#3: Battery

#2: Motorbreath

#1: Dyers Eve

For your convenience, I’ve also created a "Top 10 Metallica" Play List on youtube. :)

Perpetual Mark is a song created with parts written at different times in my life. The arpeggiated clean part played on the acoustic guitar at the end of the song was written sometime back in 94. When I revisited that part in 2013, I thought of turning its melody into something I could play on the electric guitar, and that’s what we hear in the song intro.

The heavy slow part in the first section of the song was written back in 2008, and it gives the idea of what I was feeling at the time; I was depressed, hence the lyrics in that part ("how I wish mistakes could be undone…"). My life was dragging, and that riff gives me that feel.

The part that follows was written on that same day. It is a little faster paced, and I played it on the guitar feeling like "I have to keep going!". The lyrics were written four years later matched the original intention: "if we are to follow what we feel, who’s to blame us?...".

The chorus and remaining parts of the song were written in 2013, when I finally sat down to arrange the song. The parts were built on top of the main chord progression written for the "slow heavy" section; I worked so I’d have a section for a "calmer" guitar solo, then a chorus, into which I’ve added a simple guitar lick on top of it, and then I sped up the part, turned the guitar lick into a keyboard lick, and then added a faster guitar solo.

Some friends heard the song and said that the slow section sounded somewhat like Candlemass; I certainly like the reference, even though I wasn’t thinking about it during writing. I can’t really thinking of having any specific musical influence when I was writing this song on the guitar.

As I started playing drums to a backing track, I guess I wanted the slow heavy part on the first section to have simple heavy drums, maybe reminiscent of some of the work Bill Ward did on Black Sabbath. For the other sections, I just tried to throw in some simple double-bass patterns, fitting what I could play at the time.

The bass lines were written to follow the main guitar lines. One of these days, I need to work on improving my bass playing!

Once the arrangement for the song was done, I figured I wanted two guitar solos: one on a slow part and one of a fast part. Following the way I normally write solos, I jammed to the backing track until I had some lines that stuck around. At some point, I was consistently playing some lines over and over, and had a general direction I wanted for the other pieces, so it was time to record it!

When recording, I did not want to go through the same hassle I did with Looking For You (having to relearn the recorded solo, which I had mostly improvised, then shoot the video, and finally syncing it up with the recording). This time around, I shot the video as I was recording, which I did in three takes: one take for each solo section.

I'm happy with how the leads came out: it has some catchy lines, and a good melody that closes both lead sections.

The lyrics were all written in 2013, shortly after the arrangement for the song was done, and they encompass both what I was feeling when I wrote parts of the song in 2008, as well as when I wrote the remaining parts in 2013.

The recurring idea that I can’t undo mistakes always comes to my mind, along with the sometimes dreaded feeling that those mistakes will follow me for life. Fortunately, there are also good things that’ll come along and stick around. As I go about learning from my own experiences, I’m always trying hard to filter what I bring back from the past, often whether I should I get the blame for doing things I believe to be right.

I had some lyrics by the time I started writing vocals for this song, but not enough for the whole thing. For the parts I had lyrics for, I just tried to find melodies for the words I had, whereas for the parts I didn’t have anything I just mumbled sounds until I found the melodies, and then I tried to find the words that fit the melody in a way that also made sense with the overall meaning of the song.

For the record, when I’m working on writing vocals for a song, I listen to the backing track a lot as I drive, and then I start to sing incomprehensible words, looking for the right sounds. That’s got sound weird/funny to the people I drive by. By the way, the video for this song shows some scenes of me singing as I drive around.

Most keyboard parts were put in place in order to add some atmosphere to the slower sections of the song. When the song changes to a faster beat, I was planning on keeping the guitar lick that’s played throughout the choruses, but decided to beef up the lick by playing it on the keyboard as well, and thought that worked much better.

Things, experiences, people… they come into our life and put a permanent mark on it. Wrongs and rights that make what we are. How great would it be If we could selectively erase some of those from our lives, keeping around only what makes us feel good?

As I mentioned before, when I was writing the heavy slow sections of the song, I was feeling depressed, sad about how my life was at that point, back in 2008. When writing the remaining parts, my life had gotten sort of back on track, and I think that comes through in how they all sound.

In the first half of the song, one can hear some spoken words in what may sound like an odd language to you; that is my wife repeating the words I’m singing, but in Portuguese (that can also be seen in the video).

The video starts off with a photo from a Beach. I took that photo when I was in Barra Grande, Bahia (Brazil) back in December, 2011. Sitting at that place for a couple of days has helped me clear up my thoughts and figure out what I needed to do with my life.

The video then goes on with me playing through the song, recording all the different parts. Occasionally we see some more footage of my personal videos; suffice it to say that each one of those pieces have a special meaning for me.

There are also some shots that show me driving around and singing. Like I said before, that’s usually how most of my vocal lines are create.

A final note about the video: did you notice the pop filter facing the wrong way? That has happened only when I was shooting the video: it was positioned properly when I actually recorded vocals. :)

Roland VDrum

iRig Keyboard

Living ghosts that will haunt us for life

Can we choose what we bring back?

Writing songs for many years, I had always written about certain subjects or feelings I had towards them. That was my main source of inspiration. I had never written music either dedicated to or inspired by someone. Lack of support always drove me away from doing so (so much so that I gave up making and playing music for a certain period of time in my life). As I said on a Facebook post: "If your better half is a musician who has never written a song for you, there's a very good chance you're doing something really wrong."

But things changed sometime back in 2012, when I finally had a good reason to write a song for someone special. Someone who cared. Someone who was there when I first started playing guitar more seriously.

I first wrote one piece on the acoustic guitar that ended up as the song's intro and main verses, and then I wrote an arpeggiated lick that ended up being the ending section of the song (buy played on the electric guitar).

Armed with what I had that far, I sat down one morning, wrote some lyrics, wrote three more riffs on the guitar that would work as verse, bridge, and chorus, wrote the vocal lines and a small guitar melody to go along the chorus, and the song was done; all of that took just a couple of hours!

This process was somewhat different from the other songs I wrote previously: mostly because I used to mainly think from a guitarist's point of view, so it was all about making the riffs the most fun to play. As I was writing Looking For You, I focused on the song as a whole, and ended up not spending too much time trying to make the riffs sound more complicated than they needed to be.

In that same afternoon, I sat down and recorded the song: first a guide track with guitars, then drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, and finally, the vocals.

I didn't really have anything in mind as far as drawing inspiration from my musical influences. Once I finished writing the song, however, I noticed that it does resemble somewhat one of my main influences: Yngwie Malmsteen. Opening the song with an arpeggiated clean guitar, having simple riffs for bridge and chorus… those things remind me of some of Yngwie's stuff (songs such as Forever One, for instance). This influence also surfaces a little in the guitar solo I wrote.

It had been just a couple of months since I got my drum kit. Most of my drumming experience came from playing Rock Band on the X-Box! When writing the drum parts for my song, I just tried to play the first thing that came to mind that my body could play, as I'm not really a drummer.

After jamming to the backing track for 30 minutes or so, I recorded the drums in two or three takes. I think it came out very spontaneous and organic, given my drum skills at the time.

Guitar is my main instrument, and I really like the drums, but bass guitar is something I still don't explore much. For this song, I just kept it simple and followed the rhythm guitar.

Prior to this, my only other experience playing bass had been helping out a friend's Yngwie Malmsteen cover band (which means, keep it simple and follow the guitar once in a while!). :)

If I remember correctly, I spent about an hour working on writing and recording the guitar solo for the song. I essentially played around for a little bit improvising over the backing track, and once I got some pieces I liked, I hit the record button. At that point I was sticking with the couple of pieces I liked, and then improvising the remaining bits.

I think I tried recording it three or four times, and then got one take I thought was a keeper. The next day, when I was shooting the video for the song, I had to learn what I recorded, as I wasn't completely sure. I think I got pretty close to it, but not 100%, and that shows a little bit in the video, as what I'm playing doesn't quite sync with what was recorded.

The lyrics were written relatively fast, as I pretty much wrote what I was thinking at that moment in regards to this special person I got back in my life. The lyrics talk about how much I needed to know how this person was doing (or if she was even still alive…), how music had played a part in keeping memories alive, how staying in touch was important, and how staying out of touch made us feel.

With the lyrics written, I tried a first pass at the vocal lines, but they didn't stick; fortunately, the second pass worked for me. Singing isn't something easy for me to do, but I'm glad I can write vocal lines that somehow work well for my voice (or so I think!).

When creating the vocal lines, I used the FourTrack app on my iPhone. I recorded the main guitar on one track, and started to experiment with vocals on another, until I found what I thought worked best for me.

This song is about my search for somebody who I could never forget, but had gone on several years without knowing of her whereabouts.

I was feeling happy for having found her. For so many years I thought I was never going to see her again, and I really felt bad. Finding her made me feel so well I had to immortalize that feeling in a song.

We got back together, but would stay apart for a couple of months. She recorded a message for me on my phone, so I could listen to it when I was feeling lonely. I've spread bits and pieces of her message throughout the song, which made it even more special for me.

In the very ending (audio version only, not on the video, though), I’ve put most of the original vocal message, while the original raw recording of me writing some pieces in the acoustic guitar can be heard in the background.

I like music videos that mostly show the band playing, so when I shoot my videos I make sure to capture what I’d like to see. For this video I used a 720p camera, and Sony Vegas for the editing. I don’t know much about video editing, so I just try to have fun as I learn a thing or two in the editing software.

I've been looking for you

I needed to know you were well

And I found I still cared

A future together… and a future apart

On November 11, 2011 (famous 11-11-11), I woke up and looked at my cell phone to check the time. It was 11:11hs.

On that day, Black Sabbath held a press conference to tell the world they were getting back together with their original line-up to record a new album and tour. I decide to pay homage to one of my favorite bands, so I grabbed my gear and recorded one of their songs.

What about you? What's your favorite Black Sabbath's tune?

Music is a big passion to me. I decided to start this blog as place where I can dump my thoughts related to music. I plan on posting things related to the music I like, dislike, write, play, etc.

Why Sanctuary of Nevermore? Sounds like a cool name and it blends the name of two of my top favorite bands. I'll write a post dedicate to that soon.