NILE — The Underworld Awaits Us All (review)

NILE — The Underworld Awaits Us All album cover

Album · 2024 · Technical Death Metal

4.5/5 · 2024-08-28
siLLy puPPy

Very few bands and artists thrill me to the point that i actually truly look forward to a new release but there are a few top dogs in my world that still give me that giddy euphoria that i felt as a teen utterly mesmerized by the majesty of their musical output. NILE is one of those top dogs and to my ears has never released a substandard album in its entire career although some albums are clearly stronger than others. This is a band that stridently strives for quality over sheer numbers so when i got word that a new release was hitting the scene in 2024, well, i just got the musical version of NILE fever! It’s been five years since “Vile Nilotic Rites,” which i personally loved but apparently didn’t quite resonate with the rest of the fanbase as strongly. The band’s newest attack of the senses comes from the pummelation overload of its tenth album THE UNDERWORLD AWAITS US ALL which adds a new member to the previous album’s quartet status. Guitarist Zach Jeter of lesser known bands like Doomsday Revival, Imperium, Lecherous Nocturne and Olkoth joins the team adding a whole new level of bombast to the team’s treacherous crocodile filled stream of sound.

The band is death metal royalty at this point in their career and has pretty much been so for well over two decades ago but like a handful of bands such as Enslaved, Incantation, Moonsorrow and Esoteric just to name a few seems to never run out of inspiration and a passion for delivering the highest caliber of metal in its retrospective field and even though NILE may dip a bit in overall quality from album to album, to my ears it’s always above average with an endless cornucopia of creativity sweeping the undercurrents of every brutally delivered guitar riff, bantering bass groove and guttural growl. Once again the band returns with what many are deeming the band’s best album in years however i find it simply to be yet another top notch feather in a well decorated cap. With the extra heft of a second guitarist, THE UNDERWORLD AWAITS US ALL unleashes a ridiculously full sound effect with dueling galloping guitar gymnastics and a frenetic beastly warlike percussive drive that has propelled George Kollias to the top of the heap for technical drummers in the modern world.

The album features 11 tracks that add up to about 53 1/2 minutes with the usual NILE characteristics of nerdy technically infused gnarled rhythms whizzing by like a blitzkrieg in Cairo with the occasional breaks into traditional Egyptian musical scales downtuned into an acoustic melancholy. To the uninitiated an incessant form of headache music that sounds like every other death metal migraine but to the fully indoctrinated into the cult of NILE, a massive upgrade in technique and expansiveness as the first five member album to appear since 2000’s “Black Seeds Of Vengeance.” The results is an even greater amplification of the sheer brutality the band has delivered since the beginning coupled with knotty labyrinthine riffing excursions and a slightly warped sense of reality through bizarre syncopated techniques and an unwavering weaving of a cross-section of contrapuntal anomalies. What sounds a bit new to my eras is that two guest vocalists add a bit of backing support from time to time which ushers NILE into the world of vocal harmonies albeit unpredictable where they will emerge and rather fleeting once they appear like a desert mirage.

Like every NILE release, the musicianship is top tier with razor-sharp guitar gymnastics leading the way supported by the most robust beefy bass bantering and technical drumming wizardry the world of technical death metal has to offer. Likewise Karl Sanders’ vocal growls sound as poignant as ever with the piercing precision of a hanged man delivering his last noose-necked utterances. The incessant flow is relentless which will please all the speed freaks out there who lament the fact bands like Ulcerate have slowed their frenetic death metal delivery system to a doomy dirge and other bands such as Gojira or Behemoth have ventured into the more commercial viabilities of catchy alternative metal based song structures. NILE remains true to its craft with an incessant dedication to the chaotic flow that it has always unleashed with a furor and even some 25 years after its earliest recordings still shows no signs of letting its foot off the gas.

While cries of treading water may come from many who find such rampaging attacks to be overweening and taxing on the ears, it should be remembered that such woes of despair emerge from those who can only handle death metal lite in all its watered down variations and that NILE is reserved for those who want their death metal to deliver the deathly goods without having to sweeten their caffeinated beverage into a trendy latte version of its former glory. I for one admire a band like NILE that forges ahead into the future fearlessly adhering to its Egyptian themed metal mania without compromising its basic principles of keeping death metal brutal and as friggin ugly and mangled as is possible. As with all NILE releases, the differences between the albums lie in the subtleties which for some may take a few spins to discern but to my ears this album is clearly different than what came before not just by the quintet status which gives the band a fuller more dynamic spectrum of sound but also in the musical motifs, clever cadences and use of clean vocal harmonies to add a touch of contrast. Pretty much every NILE is a winner in my book and this one is no better or worse than the majority of its canon. Simply another pleasing journey into the best of what brutal technical death metal has to offer and NILE is always a band that delivers.