I had prepared a review for the album, but I just realized that it has already been done. To avoid duplicates, I'm posting it as a comment.
"My room is filled with toys and things. But filled with nothing new. Just Clare and I alone in this placid enchanted room. It's Saturday and there hasn't been school for years. She says we're here forever, for eternity."
"Never Neverland" is the magical and evocative title track, with an emotionally charged beginning, telling the story of a girl forced to live in a room with a doll named Clare, rescued by the police and sent for mental recovery, while her grandmother is locked away in a mental institution. This is the poetry in music of Jeff Waters. This talented guitarist enters the North American thrash scene when its vital energy is waning. But our Figaro manages to breathe new life into it by focusing on compositional talent, at a time when emerging bands begin to recycle the old riffs of the genre’s daring bands. Jeff carries on his shoulders a backpack full of ideas to set to music and realizes them with different musicians for each record release. The results are brilliant, in the first three albums, starting from "Alice In Hell" in 1989 to the underrated "Set The World On Fire" in 1993. The Canadian's dexterity lies not in imitating some school or old band (he is an admirer of Slayer) but in having opened new paths for the survival of thrash metal focusing on technique, vocals, and atmospheres. A musical genre usually resistant to contamination from other styles, especially in the case of bands with poor compositional skills, Annihilator's thrash becomes a memorable chord ("Welcome To Your Death") or a clear and effortless solo ("Crystal Ann"). However, in Waters' contemporary compositions, we sometimes witness the reproduction of the same riffs in different contexts, perhaps banking on the fact that listeners have short memories and after two years no longer recall the origin of a vocal phrasing or a tangled guitar riff.
"Never Neverland," year 1990, is the ideal continuation in terms of sound and themes of its predecessor, with a more refined sound and perhaps less spontaneous, but also more compact, especially epic, even if one feels the lack of a "Crystal Ann" at some points on the platter that could elicit emotions to make our own without following a text we do not understand. Instead of singer Randy Rampage (former D.O.A), Coburn Pharr, former vocalist of Omen, is hired, who has a clearer and more powerful timbre, writing some lyrics and giving an extra boost to Jeff Waters' compositions, which, however, are tailored for Coburn's voice, a heavy singer. If Randy Rampage had been on the mic, the result would have been less brilliant, mostly due to his voice not fitting the compositions, not because of Randy's lack of charisma, stemming from the hardcore scene. It's pointless to draw up rankings, just as it’s pointless to boast about resisting the temptations of Cabernet if one is completely teetotal. Throughout his career, Jeff Waters has always sought to perfect his songs with a singer who could interpret well and make the feelings of his lyrics, but also those of his friend John Bates, his own. Just listen to the opening song "The Fun Palace," a concentration of effect-laden guitar slaloms, a handful of riffs that could suffice to write two or three albums for a minimal thrash band, but to this is always added the epic opening of the piece that slowly captures us, with the buildup of riffs and Coburn's descent with his theatrical yet decisive voice: "Welcome to the fun palace." Songs with well-balanced solos ("Sixen And Sevens") alternate with structured mid tempos ("Road To Ruin") "dominated by Pharr's voice.
What has never convinced Jeff Waters, and also myself, is the album's production by Glyn Robinson, which fails to capture an optimal drum sound, certainly acceptable, but perhaps even less candid than in "Alice In Hell"; in addition, the speed reached by Ray Hart
