By Adam Branch
Released: August 23, 2024 (Napalm Records)
Genre: Technical death metal/brutal death metal
Band members: George Kollias (drums/percussion), Karl Sanders (guitar/vocals), Brian Kingsland (guitar/vocals), Zach Jeter (guitars/vocals), Dan Vadim Von (bass)
Egyptian-themed metal began in 1984 when Iron Maiden released their album “Powerslave.” If you pry open the sarcophagus of Nile’s discography, you will find ten punishing Egyptian-themed death metal albums, each heavier than all three Egyptian pyramids combined, and maybe a few five-ton hippos too. Released on Aug. 23 through Napalm Records, the South Carolina metal heavyweight’s tenth studio album, “The Underworld Awaits Us All,” is as violent and brutal as the savage crocodiles indigenous to the eponymous river the band named themselves after.
One word that comes to mind when I think of Nile is consistency. However, a problem that some people have with consistency is that all the songs sound the same. Nile’s consistency is a good thing, though. This album keeps the core of Nile’s burning star bright and scorching thanks to their signature guitar riffing, dynamic vocals, and a powerful display of endurance performed by drummer George Kollias that would make Ra and Osiris bow down to him.
This is the second album without longtime member Dallas Toler-Wade, who left the band in 2016. Nile main-man Karl Sanders has not let his absence affect the goals and mission of Nile. I would argue that Nile are even tighter now than in their last few albums with Toler-Wade.
The first track entitled “Stelae of Vultures” wastes absolutely no time in getting straight into the death metal madness. “Phrygian dominant guitar riffs, guttural vocals, and almost overwhelmingly intense drums” would be the best phrase to sum up this song — and the rest of the album too. Every Nile album emphasizes their signature song-crafting in unique and different ways, but one trope that makes a return on this album is a ridiculously long song title as seen on the song called “Chapter For Not Being Hung Upside Down On A Stake In The Underworld And Made To Eat Feces By The Four Apes.” How about you put that on your gravestone, Karl? Aside from the Tolkien-sized title, the song musically stands out as one of the most technical on the album, as it was the first single debuted ahead of the album’s release. For all you ADHD metalheads, do not worry! “To Strike With Secret Fang” was the second single released and clocks in at two minutes on the dot. It is not only my personal favorite off the album, but it might be the fastest too.
No band is complete without a powerhouse drummer, or Lars. If Karl Sanders is the general leading his army into battle, then George Kollias is the backbone holding the Nile militia together. I would like to think that listening to Kollias’ blazing double kick and hypersonic blast beats is the musical equivalent of having one thousand pyramids dropped on you at once.
This album feels two-faced, but in a great way. The first half of the album is chaotic and technical and lets fans know that Nile has returned with the vengeance of Ramses bringing war to his enemies. After the interlude “The Pentagrammathion of Nephren Ka,” — which is a reference to the band’s debut album — a relaxing, Egyptian-esque acoustic melody, the album takes a hard right turn and does something that Nile is not known for, although they executed this shift extremely well. Nile manages to slow down and churn out punishing grooves and “Nile-istic” (pun intended) musical violence instead of their notorious technicality without sacrificing their brutality. The title track and “Doctrine of Last Things” are two massive standouts on the B-side of this album. Nile concludes their journey through the Egyptian underworld with the instrumental “Lament For the Destruction of Time.” Whenever Nile write instrumentals, fans will most likely subconsciously think it would be an interlude like “The Pentagrammathion of Nephren Ka.” The closing track features no vocals from Karl and his merry mummy-loving crew. Instead, the listener is subjected to haunting, wailing, Middle-Eastern vocals blended into another slab of technical brutal death metal.
Nile will embark on The Revenge of the Underworld Tour later this fall and early next year with death metal crews Psycroptic, Embryonic Autopsy, and Six Feet Under, the latter band being one of those “legacy” acts that can only be defined as consistent…ly tEEEEEErrible, but that will be a story — or two — for another time.
This is a top-five Nile album for me, and I give it a score of five scarab-covered hieroglyphic depictions of the Egyptian Gods out of five. Hey Marvel, how about contacting Nile to record the official soundtrack for season two of Moon Knight?
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