There’s death metal and then there’s NILE. For »Vile Nilotic Rites,« the mantra was: if it’s not right for the song, it gets cut. Nothing superfluous or idiosyncratic were allowed to persist on and live through NILE’s new team-based songwriting process. If a part was savage but didn’t fit, out the door it went. But if it was merciless and fit into the overall design of the song, it was kept and curated. The end result of NILE’s extreme musical vetting was 11 songs, sharp as obsidian blades, heavy as nine Nubian pyramids. Songs like 'Oxford Handbook Of Savage Genocidal Warfare,' 'That Which Is Forbidden,' 'Revel In Their Suffering,' and the title track exhibit the self-made qualities of editorial perfection without losing the fiery passion that makes NILE’s death metal devastatingly uncontestable.

Lyrically, »Vile Nilotic Rites« was inspired by and informed from Sanders’ scholastic interest in and understanding of Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Levantine history. The title itself, however, pushes the proverbial felucca to Khartoum, but it’s not all academic, of course. »Vile Nilotic Rites« was appropriated by Sanders from the HBO series »Rome« - episode 'Deus Impeditio Esuritori Nullus (No God Can Stop A Hungry Man),' in fact - while 'Oxford Handbook Of Savage Genocidal Warfare' was initially informed by a Nazi documentary Sanders had watched but manipulated and then correlated instead to Assyrian king, Sargon II. Then, of course, there’s a song about zombie ants ('Thus Sayeth The Parasites Of The Mind'), which is not only par for the course with Sanders but also germane to the aesthetics of death metal.

DIGI:

01. Long Shadows Of Dread
02. The Oxford Handbook Of Savage Genocidal Warfare
03. Vile Nilotic Rites
04. Seven Horns Of War
05. That Which Is Forbidden
06. Snake Pit Mating Frenzy
07. Revel In Their Suffering
08. Thus Sayeth The Parasites Of The Mind
09. Where Is The Wrathful Sky
10. The Imperishable Stars Are Sickened
11. We Are Cursed

LINE-UP:

Karl Sanders | guitars, vocals
Brian Kingsland| guitars, vocals
Brad Parris| bass
George Kollias | drums