Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Nile - In Their Darkened Shrines (2002, U.S.A.) Technical Death Metal



One of the things that stops me from getting into a lot of death metal is that there is an awful lot of it that is relatively unremarkable and uninspired, one can only take the whole 'tune down a few steps, play fast with blast beats and double kick, growl lyrics about dismemberment etc' paradigm so far before it becomes a bit of a chore. This is one of the reasons I love Nile, they (or more specifically guitarist/vocalist/frontman Karl Sanders) are thematically inspired unreservedly by ancient Egypt and Egyptian mythology and they write amazing songs with dynamics and atmosphere. Not to mention the fact that they tune lower, play faster and have better riffs than pretty well any other extreme metal band around today.

In Their Darkened Shrines is a pinnacle of modern death metal, pretty well every song on there is great within it's own right if not memorable. From the remarkable opening frenzy of "The Blessed Dead" complete with choir wailing underneath the chorus the listener is bombarded with lightspeed tech riffage, blast beats and oft cascading growls from up to 3 band members. The furious pace of the first two songs is offset by the sludgy pummeling of "Sarcophagus" where we get a sample of the of the atmospherics and dynamics mentioned earlier. The epic near 12 minute "Unas Slayer of the Gods" is the real jewel in this crown though enticing the listener with a brief acoustic guitar introduction before giving the perfect display of Nile in all it's glory, gut wrenching speed with elaborate harmonised guitar, sludgy riffs, atmospheric sections with horns, and some juicy drum parts, pretty much the perfect Nile song. While touching on the drums I should mention Tony Laureno is the real star of this album, while there are (believe it or not) faster and more technical drummers out there (including his successor in Nile) the drum parts he comes up with are so original and unforgottable given the context they are in. The album finishes with the 4 part In Their Darkened Shrines suite offering up more of the same flavour that Unas offered and finishing the album off perfectly.

At first this album was a difficult listen for me given the speed and heaviness of everything going on here but after some time it seriously grew on me and is now my number one driving album. Essential for any death metal fan.

Track List:

1. The Blessed Dead (04:53)
2. Execration Text (02:47)
3. Sarcophagus (05:10)
4. Kheftiu Asar Butchiu (03:52)
5. Unas Slayer of the Gods (11:43)
6. Churning the Maelstrom (03:07)
7. I Whisper in the Ear of the Dead (05:10)
8. Wind of Horus (03:47)
9. In Their Darkened Shrines, Part I: Hall of Saurian Entombment (05:09)
10. In Their Darkened Shrines, Part II: Invocation to Seditious Heresy (03:51)
11. In Their Darkened Shrines, Part III: Destruction of the Temple of the Enemies of Ra (03:12)
12. In Their Darkened Shrines, Part IV: Ruins (06:02)

Total playing time: 58:43

Download Here: (Nile - In Their Darkened Shrines, 192kbps)

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Name Change

I decided to change the name of the blog to something slightly less shite.

I've finished working full time and start uni next week so updating may well happen with surprising frequency, probably not to start with though.