Nile - The Underworld Awaits Us All (2024)^{Release ID: 54425}

I had big problems with Nile's last album. Vile Necrotic Rites lived up to the "vile" aspect of its title perfectly for me. Frenzied songwriting, a virtual album-spanning lack of structure and an overall sense of confusion to the many layers that were applied to the tracks all culminated in a very frustrating experience for me. As a result, I kind of disregarded The Underworld Awaits Us All upon hearing it was in the pipeline for release this year. If what was waiting in the underworld was anything that resembled 2019s offering, then I was not up for that at all. It was the inclusion of the track Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes (catchy title) on a workout playlist I found that turned my head.

Thankfully, we have a return to a more structured and measured style of songwriting, resulting in a potent death metal attack that although still not the most memorable affair is clearly an improvement from what came last time around. Based on the eleven tracks showcased here, what awaits us in the underworld is pretty much everything you would expect from a Nile record. Urgent riffs, Far Eastern musical ramblings and grand stories of the Ancient World. With the usual amount of theatre that we have all come to expect from Karl and co, Nile’s tenth studio offering feels like a return to form, even if it does not quite fully hit the mark overall.

The album is still a little too grandiose at eleven tracks in length even though the track lengths are varied and the inclusion of operatic vocals on some tracks does not really add any depth to them. As a result, the album does sound a little too big for its boots in some places. Similarly, the attempts at cleaner (never quite totally clean) vocals come off as lacking a bit. Plaudits for attempting some variety, despite the delivery being somewhat off. Technically as masterful as ever, this album will not disappoint the die-hard fans of the band. For the rest of us, it is just another Nile record though.