#24: Nile - Ithyphallic

As exciting as the prospect of buying a new Nile record was, the thrill was a bit dimmed by my impossible expectations. The first time I listened to Nile's last record, Annihilation of the Wicked, stands as one of the very few moments involving literal jaw-dropping that I've had with music in the last several years. When the hyperspeed riffing and borderline vulgar drumming of "Cast Down the Heretic" came on, I felt like I'd just done all the coke that appears on-screen in both Scarface and Blow while skydiving into a shark feeding frenzy, armed with an ice pick and my remaining wits.

But two years and a record label later, there's something missing here. Oh yeah: songs. Even after the first spin of Annihilation of the Wicked, I already was singling out multiple favorite tracks and starting to pick up some of the riffs. While having instantly recognizable songs obviously isn't a requirement for making great music, it certainly helps, especially in extreme metal, where so much of it sounds like kittens in a woodchipper, anyways. But here, it's all rocks in a blender without the gritty aftertaste.

The one song that did stand out was "The Essential Salts," which is a little curious, because it's one of the few songs on the record that Karl Sanders, the brain behind Nile, didn't have a hand in writing. It has a bit of the explosive sound of "Lashed to the Slave Stick," one of my favorite Nile tracks, and throws in plenty of melodic guitar flailings for good measure. "Papyrus Containing the Spell to Preserve Its Possessor Against Attacks From He Who is in the Water" (yes, I copy/pasted) serves well enough as this album's Headbanger's Ball fodder, but it's not quite as interesting as "Sacrifice Unto Sebek," which was simultaneously Annihilation's single and weak point.

There really seems to be something missing in the songwriting on Ithyphallic. Musically, the performances are spot-on and as swift as ever (although the vocals feel slightly tamer this time around), but the gripping passages of building tension and batshit insane time signature changes don't stack up like they used to. Either I'm underwhelmed because I'm more familiar with the genre now and have different expectations besides pure bludgeoning, or possibly Ithyphallic is just a lesser successor to one of my favorite metal records of the last few years.

There haven't been any videos released yet (the album came out last week), but "Papyrus" and "Cast Down the Heretic," among others, are available for streaming at the band's MySpace page.

For fun, here's a drum spec video of a live performance of "Cast Down the Heretic."