Nile

Annihilation Of The Wicked

[5] You’ve got to love any band so consumed by the intricacies of their own artistic process that they feel the need to explain every song in minute detail in their lyric sheet. And let’s not kid ourselves: They may do it at a gurgling, 900-bpm, down-tuned blur, but Nile are indeed an “art” band of the highest sort, combining Egyptology and Egyptian music (at least as it exists post-Iron Maiden’s Powerslave) into a sound-mass so fuggin’ dense, it takes weeks to get your head around the fact that discs like Annihilation Of The Wicked really are epic stuff. For their fifth album, the South Carolina trio have scaled back on the window dressing (more raw brutality; fewer Egyptian-ceremonial interludes), experimented with different sounds (.wav files of crocodiles!) and added a formidable, kick-obsessed new drummer (George Kollias) to their core lineup, but thematically, they’ve stayed true to their band’s mission as the Howard Carter of death metal-or, for the sake of that Google search you’re about to do, let’s just say Indiana Jones. (RELAPSE)-Aaron Burgess