Nile : At the Gates of Sethu

Breaking the trend of either reviewing albums I have been into or know my friends will be into, I'm doing one that is just of general interest to the metal community and I have seen suspicious little about aside over at angry metal guy. I'm not a Nile fan, those whom the gods detest , I flirted with the idea of Nile as Epstein mythology plays into a certain element of my personal spirituality, but I didn't, last long on my iPod. It did last longer than "at the Gates of Sethu".

The first thing i noticed about the recording is it ws oddly recorded some of it had a very claustrophobic feel, like it was recorded in a crawlspace under some ones pyramid. That first impression was much more interesting than what I would take away from sitting down to give this album my undivided ttention. Just like Jeff Loomis' playing could never carry an entire Nevermore album from solo to solo, Sanders seems to have a similar problem, an excellent shredder there's the pesky little thing called songs that tends to book end solos. There are riffs taped to together by his solos but the awkwardness of their lack of intent.

The drummer tries to help he knows his way around the kit,but who ev produced this did not do him any favors s the drums sound paper thin, especially theclickingof the double boss's, varied pattern would be in orders he seems to window only one way to attempt
this. Like most straight forward death metal from the 90's the bass it lost under the guitar , which is a feat here as nothing is really thick enough to hide behind so maybe they forgot to track bass at all.

Like morbid angle thee vocals are more barked than growled as enunciating the lyrics, David Vincent has more ball and personality in his voice so works better in their case.
Toward the end off the album things come together more anew epic riffs merge but it is too little to late, just when I though production was the problem a haunting bit of ambience floats I under the mix those moments as well as sanders solos bring this up to. For Nile to be right behind Cannibal Corpse these days in terms of commercial success when it comes to brutal old school death metal, these guys need to rein in the song writing and this albums shows chops alone are not enough. 3.5