Nile – At The Gates of Sethu

I’ve been a Nile fan since 2002 and their album “In Their Darkened Shrines” was their first one that I got in my hands: since then I fell in love with that band… I’ve been patiently waiting for “At The Gate of Sethu” and here I am listening to it and getting my mind pierced to it’s sounds. Every single one that is a fan or just likes Nile, will find that album nearly a masterpiece.

Getting started with “At The Gate of Sethu”, South Carolina’s Nile eighth studio album, and their first two songs “Enduring the Eternal Molestation of Flame” and “The Fiends Who Come to Steal the Magick of the Deceased”, both are typical Nile-riffed songs but I want to mention the change on the guitar sound. Its not the heavy low tuned Nile guitar sound, but slightly higher and the listener can hear them better! That was a change in the production and mixing that I think is really impressive.

Getting forward to the next songs there is a slight change in the typical nile style as we knew them since their last album. Ultra fast songs like “The Inevitable Degradation of Flesh” and “Natural Liberation of Fear Through the Ritual Deception of Death” that kills you with their Riffs and grooves. There are also two instrumental songs: “Slaves of Xul” and “Ethno-Musicological Cannibalisms” getting right where they fit in the album, and of course the one that impressed me when I first listened to it, “Supreme Humanism of Megalomania”, conviced me that Nile has much more to give us in the next years.

To summarise, “At The Gate of Sethu” is a very mature and well worked record, with fast drumming from George Kollias and both emotional and aggressive riffs from Karl and Dallas. It’s probably Nile’s best album and a must for every death metal fan.