Year: 2019
Total Time: 49:54
Label: Nuclear Blast
“You’ve got to be strong enough to survive through periods of bleakness, times of no hope, where things look like they’ll never turn around,” NILE’s Karl Sanders says In order to explain the current situation of the band after the 4 year absence from discography and the lineup changes with the additions of Brad Parris (bass) and Brian Kingsland (guitar/vocals) together with the veteran drummer from Greece George Kollias.
The new album with the title “Vile Nilotic Rites” is now released after 2 years of work in composition, pre- production and final production/mastering in various studios in the USA and through internet since Kollias came back to his country for a descent amount of time. It includes 11 songs, one being a nice instrumental and as we all are expecting we are dealing once again with a record of pure, hard, real death metal influenced from the music and the traditions of ancient Egypt and the East.
From the start, the band set their mood with the opening track “Long Shadows of Dread” and the speedometer goes straight at the red lines. Things do not change at all with the follow up “Oxford Handbook of Savage Genocidal Warfare” and then we have one of the best tracks in my opinion, the same titled “Vile Nilotic Rites” which has a lot of changes and full on MORBID ANGEL influences. After that, here comes the 9 minute long “Seven Horns of War” and here you can easily say, yes, this is a NILE record we are listening to, all the influences from the EAST we know this band for are here everywhere, with amazing guitar leads and so on. The same goes for “That Which is Forbidden” and after that we get “Snake Pit Mating Frenzy” and “Revel in their Suffering” where is speed skyrockets once again, not that is was missing on the rest of the tracks anyway. A small instrumental as we said before entitled “Thus Sayeth the Parasites of the Mind” helps us take a small break now; this is a great piece of music that could, or better should, have been included in some Hollywood movie with a similar theme and after that, here comes 2 new classic hyperspeed NILE songs, “Where is the Wrathful Sky” and “The Imperishable Stars are Sickened” before the grand finale of “We are Cursed” which puts an end in this new amazing work of the American / Greek death metal veterans.
So, after a few years of absence and rearrangements in their field, NILE’s return to discography is nevertheless impressive, the album grabs you by the neck since the every start and doesn’t give you any chances, the guitar work is top notch, drums are of course out of this world, speed and atmospheres are either alternating or even working together creating high quality compositions and in general I think this is a record – landmark in their career that surely has to take them more far than they’ve been before.
If you consider yourselves friends or fans of death metal or extreme sound in general and especially the American scene, you should definitely check this one out now !!
Rating: 8/10
Editor: Antonis Livanios
Related Link: NILE – Official Page
