Halloween is fast upon us, so let's celebrate with some proper death metal to get us in the mood! Karl Sanders and his band Nile have been conjuring up intricate death metal from the swamps of South Carolina for nearly 30 years. There’s nothing more brutal than Egyptian mythology, and Nile has been mining its depths for inspiration in the most terrifying ways. So, collect your shabti, open your canopic jars, and settle in for 49 tight minutes of bangers based on the Book of the Dead.
There’s no other way to start a mix of Nile’s best than with the opening track from one of their best albums. It has everything you love in a Nile track: intricate riffing, insane drumming, a brutal mid-song breakdown, and Dallas Toler-Wade yelling, “There is no God but God!” If this track doesn’t pique your interest, you may as well save yourself 45 minutes on the rest of this list.
Annihilation of the Wicked is arguably their best record, and much of it is due to the new additions of George Kollias on drums and Neil Kernon producing. The riffing by Toler-Wade and Sanders is mind-blowing: everything moves by so quickly that it’s easy to miss just how intricate they are. Kernon dials everything in perfectly, with just enough grunge to make you feel like you’re in the middle of the Egyptian desert.
This is the first to feature Brian Kingsland on guitar and vocals and, though it’s a different feel, it’s just as much Nile as anything they’ve done before. Perhaps a bit more of a Carcass feel than in the past and the varying vocal styles makes it quite interesting. It took me a while to get used to the new feel, but Vile Nilotic Rites has grown on me quite a bit.
Their first record is a bit more primitive than their later material, but you can definitely hear the seeds of what is to come. It’s also the only album that doesn’t feature Toler-Wade (until Vile Nilotic Rites). That said, there’s no denying that this track is a straight banger packed into a tight 2-and-a-half minutes. The hair stands up on my arms when I hear the jinn howl…
In Their Darkened Shrines was my introduction to Nile nearly 20(!) years ago, and as such I have a special fondness for it. It features two longer pieces: the 18-minute title track, and the 11-minute classic featured here. It starts with a riff lifted - reverently - from Candlemass’ ‘The Well of Souls’, which is from one of my all-time favorite doom albums. The midpoint section sounds right out of Celtic Frost’s To Megatherion, so you know this isn’t your run-of-the-mill death metal track. Tony Laureano fills in admirably here for this album, and this is as good a time as any to ask if there has ever been a band with a better list of former and current drummers (Laureano, Hammoura, Roddy, Kollias…)!? The band would never stretch out quite like this again, so this record stands out as a high point in their catalogue.
The follow-up to the mammoth Annihilation of the Wicked couldn’t help but be something of a letdown, but only in comparison to its predecessor. For this record only, Toler-Wade added an affectation to his vocals that has always bothered me (“No destruction, weeeeathout creation), and that alone has made Ithyphallic one I don’t often revisit. Musically, it is fantastic, as this banger ably demonstrates.
At the Gates of Sethu is generally considered by fans as one of the band’s worst records. It’s really not that bad: it’s just a bit of a let-down, particularly coming on the heels of the masterpiece Those Whom the Gods Detest. This track is testament that even “bad” Nile is better than 95% of any other death metal band’s entire catalogue. The solos in the mid-section are what put this track firmly into the banger category.
This track has been a live staple forever, and you can see why: it’s a blitzkrieg of evil coming at you relentlessly. You’ll hear the outro chant of “Black… seeds… of vengeance!” in your nightmares.
There’s a lot of controversy surrounding this record: fans complained that the production was bad, Karl Sanders responded that it was the best it’s ever been, opening track ‘Call to Destruction’ and its video were somewhat controversial for its lyrical and visual content, and I don’t think the record ever really recovered. It wasn’t long after that both Kernon and Toler-Wade were out, so perhaps things had gotten a bit stale. Nevertheless, I love this track: the solo in the mid-section is excellent, Kollias is amazing (as expected), and I love the chanted outro.
And there you have it: your brutal beginning to October. Be sure to check under your bed for Boris Karloff (or Arnold Vosloo if you’re more of a blockbuster film person), and tune in next week for our next in the series!
