Nile – At the Gate of Sethu

July 3, 2012 • Nuclear Blast

I was never much of one for Nile (I missed the boat on a lot of popular death metal acts back in the day), but I find their brand of ancient-Egypt-tinged metal to be mostly pretty cool (at least, Annihilation of the Wicked is pretty neato). Their new album, though, is a bit different; it's hard to say if it's a competent band deciding to go in a different direction or simply losing their touch.

To be fair, At the Gate of Sethu is very competently-executed metal. Technically, everything is perfect: great drums, nicely chugging and arpeggiating guitars, and the songwriting isn't bad either—it manages to not get as complicated as a lot of death metal albums get (something I dislike) but it doesn't stray into overly-simple and repetitive nu metal either. (That's not as ridiculous as it may sound.) And there are more than a few neat riffs, the main one in "Supreme Humanism of Megalomania" being one of my favorites.

In general, though, the album feels a bit empty. Yes, I have the same problem with it plenty of other people seem to, that a lot of the Middle Eastern flair that gave their old music character is gone. It shows up now and again, especially in the two interludes but not much at all outside of them, reminding you what it could have sounded like. I'm all for bands and musicians progressing with their sound—it's boring if you do the same thing over and over again, of course—but this seems like a step backwards.

Maybe not. There are plenty of people for whom the Egyptian thing was a gimmick and are more than happy to hear Nile playing more traditional death metal, and more power to them. Because, again, for death metal it's pretty darn good. Legendary? Definitely not. Memorable? Pushing it. But listenable? Absolutely. Worth a shot if you are into tech death, and I enjoy it more or less, but I wouldn't go much farther than that.

5