NILE — At the Gate of Sethu (review)

Album · 2012 · Technical Death Metal

4/5 · 2012-07-12
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At the Gate of Sethu is the seventh full-length album from US brutal/technical death metal act Nile. The album was released in 2012 in both jewel case and digipack formats, each with unique artwork. The digipack features instrumental versions of a couple of the regular album tracks as bonuses. At the Gate of Sethu features the same three-piece line-up as the group’s last couple of albums, namely Karl Sanders, Dallas Toler-Wade and George Kollias. However like with said couple of albums At the Gate of Sethu also features some guest vocalists, including the group’s former bassist/vocalist Jon Vesano, who performed on Annihilation of the Wicked (2005).

At the Gate of Sethu sees Nile in pretty much the same vein as they’ve ever been. Instrumentally these guys produce some pretty phenomenal death metal. Delivering riffs at breakneck speed, occasionally spiced with the Egyptian flavours they’re known for, and generally giving the eardrums a good pummelling. It is brutally intense, but with a sense of class that comes from the technicality.

Unfortunately unlike their other releases At the Gate of Sethu is marred by a vocal performance that is perhaps best described as being a bit up and down. The deep growling that listeners of their past releases will be familiar with is present and correct, not to mention strong as ever, but they also seem inclined to include vocals that fit more of a ‘harsh but not quite growling’ manner. These vocals were one thing that stood out for all the wrong reasons in the pre-release track, The Fiends Who Come to Steal the Magick of the Deceased. Whether it’s Karl or Dallas doing these, or one or the guests (with no less than five credited vocalists present on the album, and being death metal, it’s hard to tell sometimes), I can’t say. These vocals aside, the deepest of the growling is strong as ever, but overall the vocals do feel somewhat inferior to how they were on the preceding Those Whom the Gods Detest, or any Nile release. Perhaps conversely they also included some clean vocals in moderation, which actually worked pretty well. But then again they did in the previous albums title track and I would actually like to hear them used a little bit more in Nile’s music. Their style of clean vocals add some quite epic parts to the music.

Reservations about the vocals aside the music is more top quality technical death metal of the kind the metal world has become to expect from Nile. Although more tracks of epic proportions would have been a welcome addition to the release, as there’s nothing really on the sort of level of Those Whom the Gods Detest, 4th Arra of Dagon, Unas Slayer of the Gods, or What Can Be Safely Written. The closest delivered here is the closing track The Chaining of the Iniquitous, which falls short of the greatness of past masterpieces.

All in all At the Gate of Sethu is perhaps the most difficult Nile album to get into so far. For the couple of reasons outlined above it’s certainly a contender for the group’s weakest album to date, perhaps narrowly superior to the debut Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka where the band were still finding their sound and didn’t yet have Dallas Toler-Wade in the band. Although ultimately I have to say that a great album tier rating is still deserved because of the top notch instrumentation I also have to close this review on a note of disappointment, as all things considered, At the Gate of Sethu is a major step down compared to the last few releases of the band. At the end of the day this was satisfying enough, given a few listens to let it sink in, but with five superior albums under their belt, the band can and have done much better.

7.9/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))