OK, NILE Amongst the Catacombs of the Nephren Ka is a breath of fresh air in what was starting to become a stale death metal scene in the late 90s.When released in 1998 it seemed like every death metal band participating in a race to either become the most blasphemous or the most disgusting band on the planet. It was actually relieving to see a new angle on the genre. Nile was like a breath of fresh air in an scene that was becoming stale.
NILE was the brainchild of Karl Sanders who’d already been playing in bands since the 1980s. I guess already being an experienced musician allowed him to start a new project that was already light years ahead of many in the genre in terms of technicality and technique, but the experience allowed him the ability to still write digestable songs, that people without a PHD in death metal could absorb. There’s an underlying concept to this album that focuses on Egyptian mythology, and steeped in ancient occult feelings. The music itself is varied ranging from hyper-technical to slow and brooding with egyptian sounding instrumental breaks.
I remember buying this CD not long after it came out and being blown away by it. No-one had combined death metal with classical / indigenous music in the way these guys had. Bands like Morbid Angel and Nocturnus had the technicality and hinted at something like this but for my money, these guys perfected it. this is truely something special. The opening track “Smashing The Antiu” is a statement of intent providing some of the most mindbendingly crushing death metal ever recorded up until that point. The following tracks show case some egyptian instrumentals, this combinded with the arcane (egyptain mythology) used in the lyrics allows this to stand head and shoulders above most death metal while providing the scene with a badly needed injection of something new. The track “Stones of Sorrow” successfully combines the Egyptian sounding music into the death metal taking the listener on a truely unique journey. Other thing I have to congratulate the guys on is providing some vocal variation. Death metal traditionally only has one tone (The deep gutteral growl) where as these guys have really tried to expand on that too.
Basically I have nothing but praise for this album. There is not one thing I think could be better, and they guys have succesfully provided the death metal scene, which at this point was now 13 years old with a breath of something fresh and expanded the musical experience. Well done guys!
For more great heavy metal reviews and articles be sure to keep checking back on Metalhed.com as regularly as you can!