We are no strangers to American extreme metal Egyptologists Nile here at the Midlands Rocks, having caught them last time they blazed a trail across the UK (reviewed here). Yet, it has been almost five years since their last album and our hunger for new Nile product has been eating us from the inside. Thankfully, the wait is over and the band hit us with album number ten, the cryptically-titled The Underworld Awaits Us All. It seems that their excavation of ancient Egypt is depthless and they hit us with eleven pieces of archaeological treasure that stand as the band’s best.
Despite having formed in 1993, Nile still have a sense of urgency about themselves and they come out swinging on opening track ‘Stelae Of Vultures’. There’s no time to waste on fancy introductions or other such niceties, just a ferocious, pulsating riff and then the band are off, getting their head’s down to deliver a full-on sonic assault. Old school fans will definitely be sated with this cut as it contains all the key ingredients, from those humongous, crushing riffs those nifty time changes that feel as if tectonic plates are shifting beneath our feet. Yet, there’s also a freshness to the band’s sound, a sense that Nile aren’t resting on past glories and that sense of urgency is very much evident on the following cut, the excellently-titled ‘Chapter For Not Being Hung Upside Down On A Stake In The Underworld And Made To Eat Feces By Four Apes’. As song titles go, it certainly spikes the interest, and it delivers in the music department, serving up a skin-searing brand of death metal that is just as caustic as the lyrics.
Overall, this album feels more technical that anything Nile has done before. That might be the addition of new members Dan Vadim Von (bass, vocals) and Zach Jeter (guitars, vocals) injecting new life into the band, or it could be a band at the top of their game and refining their skills, but whatever the reason, Nile have produced an album in The Underworld Awaits Us All that can rival 1995 EP Festivals Of Atonement. The acoustic interlude ‘The Pentagrammathion Of Nephren-Ka’ inserted mid-album ensures that the record flows smoothly and its ethereal nature creates a foil for the heavy songs that bookend it.
A song of several suites, the monolithic title-track is an epic within itself and takes the listener on a journey through the dark depths of hades, it sounds as if someone has lowered a microphone into hell and the result is as discombobulating as you’d expect (so make sure you keep the light on when listening). This is an album that barely puts a foot wrong and closer ‘Lament For The Destruction Of Time’ is no exception and it brings the album to an earth-cracking conclusion (quite literally).
A masterpiece.
- The Underworld Awaits Us All is released via Napalm Records on 23rd August 2024.
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Track List:
1. Stelae of Vultures
2. Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes
3. To Strike with Secret Fang
4. Naqada II Enter the Golden Age
5. The Pentagrammathion of Nephren-Ka
6. Overlords of the Black Earth
7. Under the Curse of the One God
8. Doctrine of Last Things
9. True Gods of the Desert
10. The Underworld Awaits us All
11. Lament for the Destruction of Time
