NILE
Vile Nilotic Rites
2019, Nuclear Blast
NILE. Just say the name. Feel the smile creep across your face like rats over your feet while exploring a cavern alit only by a slowly dimming torch. Taste the acrid air infecting your lungs like a long dormant curse now awakened by chants in heretofore unknown tongues. Consider long song titles. NILE.
My face might stick like this.
Vile Nilotic Rites comes after a period of upheaval for Kar Sanders and company, with longtime member Dallas Toler-Wade exiting in 2017. Soldiering on is what must be done, and 2019 finds NILE reclaiming their place upon the throne of Death Metal. The band hasn’t sounded this downright mean in years, and previous production issues (where everything was absolutely cranked) are gone. There is a shocking, violent clarity to the tone of Vile Nilotic Rights - every instrument is audible, the orchestrations tighter than an ancient tomb’s sarcophagus. NILE have never been low brow in what they do and, lyrically as well as vocally, are about as difficult as it gets except that here, with the clarity of other instruments also comes lyrics you can understand. I know, it’s Death Metal, and grr grr grr but stay with me here. Lyrics are as important to NILE as the music. Being able to understand them is not a detriment here at all - and you’ll still need an explanation of them believe me.
Musically, NILE have historically been defined by being a tornado of sound, leaving the listener completely baffled as to what just happened. Occasionally, the band has been known to indulge the groovier aspects of its nature ("Lashed To The Slave Stick" immediately springs to mind) but overall, NILE exists to beat you senseless.
Vile Nilotic Rights slaps. It slaps so hard. There is groove here of an almost thrash idiom and every song contains enough crushing riffs that stampeding elephants might actually come through your stereo. Kollias’ drum work is exemplary and crisp like a fall morning, embellishments like dew upon the grass. Every player is clearly in their pocket, the ambient passages woven in like delicate stitching on ancient garments.
NILE. Just say the name. And bow in reverence.
5.0 Out Of 5.0
