Nile - Those Whom the Gods Detest (Nuclear Blast/Riot)
True to form, I find most death metal (and by extension, most death metal based subgenres) a bit pish. It’s just ridiculous. It’s mostly men in their 40s roaring about raping people’s guts and other stuff like that. It’s terribly disingenuous. Music is about true expression isn’t it? At what point would George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher, a man tits-deep in family life and World of Warcraft, genuinely want to rape someone’s stumphole? As entertaining as it is, it’s all a bit false.
Nile are a bit different though. Nile’s main fella Karl Sanders is (as is pretty easy to guess) absolutely obsessed with Ancient Egypt. Scholars and students write to him about this shit. Rather than sing pish about face-fucking livestock, he sings about Ancient Egypt. Fair play to the man, he’s maintained a pretty good career banging on about mummies and shit. If only everyone could make a living singing about what they love.
Sanders and company deserve more credit though, because Those Whom the God’s Detest is a pretty bangin’ record. It’s just like every other Nile album you’ve heard really, but a Nile album is automatically better than pretty much any other death metal album. Riffs are hideously detuned and weighty, solo bits are embarrassingly fleet-fingered, drumming is ludicrous, and there are atmospheric bits aplenty. They also still make up the best song titles ever. Seriously, if I ever get a pet I’m going to call it Hittite Dung Incantation. I don’t care if it’s a cat or a budgie, it’s getting called that. Oh man. Imagine that. You’re in a park, and your dog’s running away, and you shout his name to get him back. ‘Hittite Dung Incantation!’ you’d cry. Imagine the looks you’d get.
Anyhoo, it’s admittedly quite hard to be blown away by a Nile album nowadays, but they still manage to throw in the odd surprise now and again. If you’ve heard any of Sanders' solo records (and I strongly advise you seek them out, as they’re pretty good) you’ll know the man makes a mean atmospheric soundscape. These are here aplenty. There are also bits where a vaguely exotic-sounding singer starts warbling over all the blast beats and noise and it all comes together really well.
It’s probably not as good as some of their previous records (for my money Annihilation of the Wicked is still the shiznit) but it’s definity better than Ithyphallic, although that album featured the absolutely blinding lyric ‘Anoint my phallus with the blood of the fallen!’ I’m SO going to drop that doozy into a conversation.
And, as has previously discussed, I find their lyrical proclivities highly interesting and entertaining. Egypt is brilliant. Seriously. To be honest, my knowledge of the place probably only extends as far as wanking furiously over Rachel Weisz in the first Mummy film (seriously, I was pissed when she wasn’t in the third film, but it wasn’t set in Egypt either so they made a serious bollocks of that one didn’t they?), but the fact is that the music of Nile only serves to pique my interest in what was clearly a deranged, brutal time and place.
To conclude, Those Whom the Gods Detest is well worth a gander. Heck, even your Mummy would like it.
Did you see what I did there?
Nile's Those Whom The Gods Detest is out now on Nuclear Blast/Riot. Get your hands on it here.
