In his thirty-one years as frontman of Egypt-obsessed extreme death metal act Nile, founder member Karl Sanders has remained completely true to his original vision. An unrelenting desire to create the most brutal technical death metal riffs known to man. A quest for modern musical perfection using ancient history as the central inspiration. And a steadfast refusal to wear any kind of leg covering that goes more than six inches past the knee. With all of these things, Sanders knows absolutely no compromise.

Beginning life as a trio, the band has played with its format over the years, regularly switching between three or four core members with additional musicians employed as and when required. This time, however, for their tenth full-length album The Underworld Awaits Us All (Napalm Records) the South Carolina act explore uncharted studio territory by increasing their number to five. With the addition of axeman/vocalist Zach Jeter and bassist Dan Vadim Von, where Nile’s origin story began with three musicians in total, now they have three guitarists alone.

A lot has happened in the five years since previous record Vile Nilotic Rites, the rise of Artificial Intelligence as an artistic tool being one notable point of concern. With some “fans” screaming their disapproval of AI artwork from their battered, worn, and suspiciously sticky keyboards, it must all come as a bit of a surprise to Michał ‘Xaay’ Loranc, the artist credited with creating the album’s cover art which references the cycle of life and eventual judgment.

Faced with opener “Stelae of Vultures,” your first task will be to look up stelae on Google Dictionary. After this, you will find that after the song’s brooding intro, your brain has already made a hasty departure from the back of your skull and is now casually dripping down the wall behind you. After recovering from this initial assault of screeching guitars and insane footwork from drummer/death metal octopus George Kollias it’s time to read from the Egyptian Book of Dead – Chapter 181 to be exact. More specifically, the “Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes.” Oh yes, those ridiculously long song titles aren’t going away anytime soon.

An absolute colossus that offers no respite in its two brief, frenzied minutes, “To Strike with Secret Fang” is a sweeping mass of blackened chords with a savage undercurrent of dark melodies. A combination of thrash and death metal with some discombobulating vocals, a pummelling groove, and an actual choir, “Naqada II Enter the Golden Age” takes its time to set the mood. And the mood is angry. “The Pentagrammathion of Nephren-Ka” is up next and while you head back to Google Dictionary to look up Pentagrammathion, just lose yourself in quiet Middle Eastern atmospherics for couple of minutes before “Overlords of the Black Earth” takes that hole in the back of your skull and crams it full of churning riffs, unearthly backing vocals and pitiless drumming from Kollias who would appear to have more arms than General Grievous.

Elsewhere, “Under the Curse of the One God” leave little time for recovery despite occasionally slowing down while “Doctrine of Last Things” ebbs and flows with ripping savagery, the song adding more vocal curveballs just to keep you on your toes. Although hardly a contender for most commercial song of the year, “True Gods of the Desert” sees a slightly milder side to Nile as magnificent melodic guitar work fuses with slow, grinding riffs and even a moment or two of clean vocals. At over eight and a half minutes, the apocalyptic title track is the longest on the album but with its labyrinthine tempo changes, blasts, and epic riff explosions, it sets up the equally varied and absorbing instrumental cut “Lament for the Destruction of Time” to close out the album in style. 

Throughout the record, Sanders, Jeter, and Brian Kingsland complement each other brilliantly, their clearly distinctive voices and playing styles interweaving and clashing at will on arguably the most melodic and varied record in Nile’s history – as well as one of the heaviest. The Underworld Awaits Us All is not only an undisputed death metal highlight of 2024 but one of the band’s best in recent years.

Buy the album here:
https://lnk.to/NILE-TUAUA

9 / 10
GARY ALCOCK