How can I say this…this album blows. Seriously. Oh, and by “blows” I mean “Blows all other metal albums into oblivion with the sheer firepower of its awesomeness“. “Gods” is further proof of how Nile continue to out-do themselves. Without a doubt, Nile is seated firmly at the top of the Death Metal genre by virtue of their technical prowess, epic songwriting and utter magnitude with which they put everything together.

Those Whom the Gods Detest is everything you’d expect from a Nile album: Crushingly-Brutal drumming and guitars combined with epic Egyptian themes that would make even the Pharaoh Ramses cower in fear.

The band really stepped up the “Egypt-ness” in this album, notably drawing on Karl Sanders’ inspirational way with Egyptian-themed rhythmics and overtones. You can really hear the guitars telling an epic story in their phyrigian and minor patterns, like in the track Utterances of the Crawling Dead you can just imagine some pissed-off Egyptian God raining fire down from the sky.

As Nile fans know, the band has never been one to shy away from long song titles like, Permitting the Noble Dead to Descend to the Underworld, or the acoustic-instrumental Yezd Desert Ghul Ritual in the Abandoned Towers of Silence. The songs themselves vary from crushingly fast tremolo-picking blast beats, to sludgy death metal, to acoustic-ethereal melodies. The opening track Kafir! features a man singing in Arabic chant, wailing across all 24 notes of the Eastern music scale.

Hi. We’re Nile. Care to have your face melted off?

For just a few simple guys from the south, they sure know how to make complex and heavy music. On the surface they look like any other death metal band (an insanely-fast death metal band), no costumes or elaborate stage setup or any of that stuff. Underneath it all, well, it’s friggin’ Nile!

The only weak spot with this album is the same weak spot with the other Nile albums: the mixing could be a little better. The guitars get a little muddled in the mix during the rhythm parts. I know it’s not easy to mix the lows from a 7-string guitar over George Kolias’ insane drumming, but the gain might need to be turned down a little. Speaking of drumming, Jesus Christ, someone has been eating their Wheaties!

Overall, this album shows how Nile is the proverbial plague of locusts that wipes-out all those in their way.

A+

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