Seattle metal titans Nevermore have released the first video from their new album The Obsidian Conspiracy. The song is "Emptiness Unobstructed", and the video was filmed by Nigel Crane, incorporating footage from Nevermore's performance of the song from their May 18th show in London. 

"We only performed the song twice that night, so we had to make these takes count," said vocalist Warrel Dane. "So we went all out." 

The video mixes the band playing at the 02 Academy with footage of Dane singing the quieter parts of the song in front of the famous White Cliffs of Dover. Considering the surprisingly short runtime of the songs on The Obsidian Conspiracy, the video for "Emptiness Unobstructed" shows us Nevermore at their best: Dane's voice is as powerful as we have ever heard it, alternately towering and crooning; Jeff Loomis shreds through his guitar solo while playing a soft, quiet melody for the verses; and Jim Sheppard and Van Williams build the solid rhythm foundation on which Dane and Loomis take off.

While the video does exactly what it says on the label, the song itself is typical of what Nevermore have offered on The Obsidian Conspiracy: there's nothing wrong with it, and it's not bad by any means, but after 2005's This Godless Endeavor pushed the envelope with musicianship and songwriting, The Obsidian Conspiracy feels very "been there, done that". To be fair, that's not a bad thing, but I can't help wondering if Nevermore has plateaued. "Emptiness Unobstructed" sounds like it could have come from 2000's Dead Heart in a Dead World - which, again, isn't bad, but there's precious little that sounds "new" here. Nevermore are a brilliant band, and I don't want to suggest that they've run out of ideas; but after pushing forward and forward with every album in their career, it feels like Nevermore have slowed down on The Obsidian Conspiracy. All things considered, though, if we still get songs like "Emptiness Unobstructed", I can think of worse things.