It’s been five years since the Vile Nilotic Rites, an excellent album in its brutality and technics – for the moment it’s a largest gap between Nile‘s albums. Let’s also add some line-up changes: in 2024 Dan Vadim Von (bass, vocals) and Zach Jeter (guitar, vocals) joined the band too, so now it is a triple guitar attack in studio (and it’s still two guitars on stage since Brian Kingsland refused to perform live.) However, this summer Zach got his rough battle cry as a guitarist and as a vocalist as well because Karl Sanders got to the hospital after Graspop Metal Meeting so the band performed as trio at Hellfest. Anyway, Nile have a real reinforcement now with new members and the time has come for the new, 10th album The Underworld Awaits Us All.
“We didn’t want to go backward or just do things the way we had done before; nor did we want to necessarily change who we are and what we love doing. We needed to stay true to the Nile sound and to Nile fans, while pushing forward and raising the bar on ourselves in every way,” states Karl Sanders. And even if we take a look on a cover and a track list, we can say that Karl tells the truth. Mystically sounding instrumental “The Pentagrammathion of Nephren-Ka” refers to the band’s debut long play, when classical (for Nile, of course) extra-long name “Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes” is no less than an excerpt from Egyptian Book Of The Dead. After having a good laugh, I suggest to read this review, where author took the whole “apes and feces” seriously and it’s quite interesting point of view either.
Talking about music, Nile remain true to themselves. In the opening “Stelae of Vultures” we got immediately hit by the avalanche of superfast drumming by George Kollias (a have a doubt if he is a real man or some sort of a machine), atonal chords, technical riffs with similar bass lines and growls, of course, which transform into menacing roar from time to time. Broken rhythms are present here fully as well: it can be extremely fast, then slowing down for a few seconds just to get back to the highest tempo. The next “To Strike with Secret Fang” suddenly starts more melodic than you expect from Nile but rough riff and blast beat attack remind that you are still facing brutal technical death metal. There is also a quite melodic (and very fast) solo in “Naqada II Enter the Golden Age”, when on the background there are some interesting tempo changes, riffs and drum patterns. Oh, and the bass line here, it’s just great.
“Under the Curse of the One God” is expectedly brutal and technical in the intro and soon the music becomes just pummeling at some incredible tempo. Add the atonality of guitars here and you will get that on Nile that fans were waiting. However, the tempo reduces at some moment and here comes the choir, very short and sporadically (with such endless brutality these choir bursts make the song vivd.) In the end some tribal drums can be heard, when the choir sings a strange melody; overall it sounds really ancient and very dark. The next one “Doctrine of Last Things” is slow-paced, with the viscous riff and endless double bass, reminding Obituary a little bit or Six Feet Under (if this name can be mentioned in a decent company.) In the middle of the song everything changes, the pace increases, the choir comes again and there is also some almost prog bridge. “True Gods of the Desert” is also slow-paced and grim, with some otherworld sounds; later it will develop into some groovy riffs (well, almost groovy) with another splendid drumming. And the titled song is expectedly a quintessence of the album: grimness, brutality of riffs, technical playing; atonal solo gives you some disturbance when the main riff is great for headbanging. Agitated and slightly hysterical female vocals end the song and take us to the ending instrumental “Lament for the Destruction of Time”, slow-paced and very atmospheric, with melodic guitar and very minor orient melodies. Some tragic vocals and a short soundscape impressively end the album.
Well, one more time Nile showed that they have nothing and no one to prove: line-up changes or some other circumstances can’t prevent them to do a great job, musically, conceptually and lyrically. Check this album, read the lyrics and enjoy the ancient underworld of Egypt.
The Underworld Awaits Us All will be released on August, 23 via Napalm Records.
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