Another one of those products of the Seattle, Washington area is Warrel Dane. He is a vocalist with some opera training, and a bit in the vein of Geoff Tate (Queensrÿche), or in the early years a little Rob Halford (Judas Priest).

My approach: I will show images and text at at the very end I will link to some youtube videos relevant to the talks. I don't want to distract people with the videos and perhaps have them make conclusions about this vocalist from hearing only one facet of his singing.

Warrel Dane

Born March 7th, 1961. He is a natural baritone, yet he is known for his high vocals which he began early in his youth with a band called Serpent's Knight. He continued this epic high vocals reminiscent of Judas Priest or Queensrÿche in the first two albums from Sanctuary.

Youtube does have a Vocal Range video someone put together in 2014 for Warrel Dane. D5 to G#1.

My personal awareness of Warrel Dane

I became aware of the band Sanctuary when their album Refuge Denied came out. I remember hearing that Dave Mustaine of Megadeth endorsed this rising new band. That was enough for my friends and I at the time to check them out. I remember thinking... THIS GUY CAN SING high. It turns out that was just one facet. He would seem to evolve and do some very interesting things over time.

The next album they released was called Into the Mirror Black. I fell in love with this particular Sanctuary album and some friends and I piled into a car to drive 200+ miles through the mountains to Denver, Colorado to see Sanctuary and Fates Warning. When we arrived the concert had been cancelled. Sanctuary would soon break up as a band. So all of the people with including myself were budding musicians so we hung out at various guitar stores, and then drove back home.

Years Later - Nevermore

Years later I was a father and actually living in Denver, Colorado and a friend turned me onto a band called Nevermore. The first album was a self titled album and it had Warrel Dane as the vocalist, but he was different. The band was much more thrash/progressive metal oriented and has a very unique sound. The vocals while often high were no longer stratospheric and he was showing little embellishments as he sang that were unlike anyone I'd ever heard.

I did not immediately take to Nevermore. Once I did I was hooked. It had Warrel Dane who is one of my favorite Male Vocalists. It had Jeff Loomis who is absolutely frenetic and skilled on a guitar. Overall, it was just really good music. It also had extremely deep and interesting lyrics, often waxing poetic. I would often find myself believing many of the lyrics might be drug inspired. The topics of some of the songs would seem to back this up.

Here are the lyrics from the song The Sanity Assassin which were the first lyrics to really GRAB me.

See the man of hungry mind
Never had a dream to call his own
His sin in form of thought
He lived to milk the minds of the blind
To rule the sea of imagination
And the sanity assassin
Is coming down to steal your mind
So he takes an innocent's vision
The blind lead the blind they say
Meet the sanity assassin
A trick of mind or the devil's whim
On the way to tomorrow's dream
He's fading away

See the man with the empty soul
Never had a face or will of his own
So he took another's pride
And he made a mask of faults
Defensive anger and false emotion

And the sanity assassin
Is coming down in a stream of black
So he takes what he cannot live
The black leads the blind astray
Meet the sanity assassin
A trick of mind or the devil's whim
On the way to tomorrow's dream
He's fading away

Sing your sweet poison
Stealer of dreams
Bleed your sweet anguish
And the form of dreams are born

Don't be afraid to
Dream outside the lines
Don't be afraid
Of painting pictures with your mind
Don't be afraid
Your path is not of sorrow
Don't be afraid
Dreams are immortal

Rise in the coming tide
Wave after wave of sleep
Crushing down
Hopes of the weakened and knowing
Awash in the undertow, falling away

Listen as the tale begins
To now unweave
The will of strong minds
He'll never deceive
I speak the words to lay me down
I am ever strong
Against the all-knowing
Thief of imagination

Dreams are immortal

They would release another album fairly quickly called In Memory that was actually more of an EP but had more great songs and incredible lyrics.

The next album after that though was called Politics of Ecstasy and it has some very powerful songs. The mix was very different at times the instruments were a bit overpowering for the vocals, but it is still a great album and has some truly amazing lyrics. It includes a song called "The Tienanmen Man" which will forever leave when that event happened scorched into my brain since the song starts with the following simple phrases.

On June fifth, in the year of eighty-nine,
he was unarmed with focused mind
Defiance glared down the barrel of the gun pointed from a tank in Tienanmen square
And he stood there:

I was back living in the remote mountains of Colorado as a single parent for my two youngest boys when the album Dreaming Neon Black would be released. I would meet my wife and we would partially both have moments around some of the songs on this album, especially they title song. This VERY poetic and deep song still sings to me in my mind frequently. If I had to pick a favorite Nevermore album, or a favorite album featuring Warrel Dane, this would be the one I chose.

The album after this was called Dead Heart in a Dead World and it was a very good album as well. Some of our very young children enjoyed singing the song The Heart Collector from this album. It also has a Nevermore rendition of the Simon & Garfunkel song Sound of Silence.

Nevermore would continue to release numerous albums which were ALL good. I will show the album covers for them here. They did not impact me as much as these earlier albums did. Within the last few years Nevermore broke up, Jeff Loomis went on to play guitar for Arch-Enemy, and Warrel Dane went on to reform Sanctuary.

Solo Album

Warrel Dane did make a solo album which is also excellent entitled Praises To The War Machine.

Sanctuary - Take Two

Sanctuary was reformed and as Arch-Enemy received Jeff Loomis, one of Arch-Enemy's guitarists would join Sanctuary. It seems a bit incestuous.

Videos that support the text I wrote above

Sanctuary - Refuge Denied - Battle Angels (examples of earlier years and insane high notes)

Sanctuary - Into The Mirror Black - Mirror Black

Nevermore - Nevermore - The Sanity Assassin (Lyrics shared earlier in this post)

Nevermore - Dreaming Neon Black - Dreaming Neon Black (very deep lyrics in the video) VERY good song

Nevermore - Dead Heart In A Dead World - The Heart Collector (one of my boys loved to sing this) - lyrics are on the youtube page

Nevermore - Dead Heart In A Dead World - Narcosynthesis (Live)

Nevermore - Enemies of Reality - Enemies of Reality (lyrics embedded in video - this is a heavier song)

Nevermore - The Godless Endeavor - This Godless Endeavor (lyrics embedded in video)

Nevermore - The Obsidian Conspiracy - She comes in colors (lyrics on youtube page)

Warrel Dane - Praises to The War Machine -Brother (official video)

Sanctuary - The year the Sun Died - Exitium

EDIT: Bonus - Watch Guitarist Jeff Loomis shred The Obsidian Conspiracy in a music store: