Nile – Annihilation of the Wicked

Before talking about the album itself, I’ll try to place this record in the bands career and try to understand what can be expected from now on from Nile. “Annihilation of the Wicked” is Nile‘s 4th album. I think a band’s 4th album is, usually, the hardest one to conceive. I’ll explain…

A band’s 1st album can be a great work, or just good enough to brake through (let’s talk about the ones that survive this process, obviously).

With the 2nd album the “tests” begin. Or you do worst and you can forget about it, or you can really do better and stay “above water”. Let’s suppose that you do great and manage to get to a 3rd album.

By this time, you have no excuse to do a bad album anymore. You must have an idea how your band should work and sound by now.
You really should do THE “killer” album. Otherwise its just on more “band X” album… People will start to loose interest. (yeah, why should we listen to another median record from band X? We have the other two records from them and many other bands to get into) OK, so you do the best album “˜till date. That’s great! Three albums in the bag.
(Some of the 80′ / 90′ classic metal albums are the 3rd in the bands career. We have Metallica‘s “Master of Puppets“, Slayer‘s “Reign in Blood“, Morbid Angel‘s “Covenant“, and so on…)

In order to continue a “decent” career you should really improve your work. We now have two options. You continue doing albums with the same formula – and become another AC/DC phenomenon – or you manage to continue building up, instead of stagnating. So let’s see where Nile is…

Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka” was a killer album. I was stunned with this work. They mixed death metal with Egyptian influences – lyric and music wise. What a great idea!

Black Seeds of Vengeance” presented an even more brutal work. Production more clean, songs more complex, a second guitarist added, Egyptian / death metal symbioses pushed a little far more. Well… another epic album with more great arrangements.

In Their Darkened Shrines” – my favorite to date – was a culmination of an amazing work. They were better then ever. The songs were great, the technical aspect was pushed to the limit, Egypt incarnated in Nile for good! Yeah, this was Nile. Now tha’s what i’m talking about…

So what now? Were to from here? Well…
Is technical death metal riffs and amazing Egyptian moods still surprising by now? I don’t think so…

“Annihilation of the Wicked” would be the band’s classic if only this was the bands 1st to 3rd album. But the reality is, Nile has already 3 records in the bag. In my opinion, this is just “another” Nile record – that AC/DC phenomenon starting to show up. The production is as sharp as it gets. Tremendous work. Songs are pushed to inhuman limits technique wise. Amazing musicians (shit I love Nile, really!) but, at this time, that’s not enough. They have done that already… Adding Egyptian chorus and stuff is not enough anymore. It’s still a very good album and probably the best death metal record of 2005.

I think Karl Sanders – if by any chance reads this non-sacred text – will probably curse me with some Egyptian old scripture (to turn me into a frog or something) but don’t get me wrong… I know the Nile guys really put some good effort into this record. I have no doubt Karl Sanders did his best on this one. Man, this record is great. My point is just regarding the complete bands work. That’s how I see Nile and any other band. As a continued work.

The Nile “magic” is somehow fading. I hope that in the 5th record they manage to revitalize their sound. Nile is a great band!

Nile – Lashed to the Slave Stick

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1 comment

  1. They should take their collective heads out of the gutter, shit just because the name of the band is Nile, it doesn’t mean they should rewrite always the same shit, boring shit by now, just make fucking metal, or go fucking die somewhere, there are 100 bands that would do it better.

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