Nile - In Their Darkened Shrines

Having become one of my favorite bands of all-time (literally), I’ve come to know Nile’s music extremely well and have had the pleasure to see them perform on stage twice in 2010 (and a third time this April). If you go around and ask hardcore Nile fans what their favorite Nile album is, chances are that 96% of the time they will say In their Darkened Shrines. Personally, I know tons of Nile fans (aka all of the metalheads I know), and out of all of them that I’ve asked that question to, only two said something other than In their Darkened Shrines. If you asked me that question, I would say that it’s a tie between Black Seeds of Vengeance and Those Whom the Gods Detest. There are some cases where I just can’t see what it is that people love so much about a certain popular album. But when it comes to this album, I can understand completely why people are so fond of it. Nile has never released a mediocre album (the lowest score I’ve ever given one of their albums is 14/20). But with the release of their new album approaching very quickly, I want you to know that I’m saying this from a perspective of someone who HASN’T heard the new album. Because I’ve been unpleasantly surprised time and time again by bands like Metallica, Morbid Angel, Bring me the Horizon, and many more.

At first I just couldn’t see why Those Whom the Gods Detest wasn’t EVERYONE’S favorite Nile album, that is, until I noticed the drumming that was done on In their Darkened Shrines. Like many people from the younger community, the first song from that album I heard was Sarcophagus when I watched the music video on YouTube. Immediately, I was struck with guitar riffs and harmonizations that were almost completely and solely influenced by the musical style that comes out of northern Africa and the middle-east. But for those of you that were expecting bombarding blast beats and crushing drumming, this probably isn’t the song that will give you that in its fullest. Instead, let’s go back to the beginning of the album where you’re greeted by the gentle buildup of the cymbals and a creepy choir in the background. This is one of those things where it’s literally an explosive burst of chaos; when I first heard this, I didn’t know what the hell to think! It was then that I realized what all of those people meant when they said that Nile is hard to handle. Just remember that this is the only Nile album that this particular drummer is on, he was replaced by their current drummer roughly two years after the release of this album.

I’ve noticed that the majority of the growls get higher-pitched with each album. When you listen to the title song on Black Seeds of Vengeance, the growls are so fucking deep that it’s hard to hear them at times! Of course, I know that there are two vocalists and all of Karl’s growls have always been deep. Although Dallas can still pull off some of the DEEPEST gutturals I’ve ever heard, the growls that he does the majority of the time have gotten higher pitched and closer to a yell with each album. There is even an extremely noticeable difference in the general pitch of Dallas’ growls in this album than the ones in Black Seeds of Vengeance.

Here’s another thing that makes this album much more unique than most of the other Nile albums. This album has much less of a “brutal” sound and a MUCH darker sound than all of the other Nile records. Of course, Karl Sander’s guitar work is flawless and further strengthens my opinion on him as being one of the greatest guitarists of all-time. As far as the overall sound of all the songs on the album, it’s pretty much like every other Nile album out there, there’s a mix of the barbaric slamming brutality and the middle-eastern styled slower songs with some melodic layers. There really isn’t anything at all that I DON’T like about this album, I guess it’s more so that the things that I DO like about it don’t appeal to me as much as Black Seeds and Those Whom the Gods Detest. I would HIGHLY recommend this to everyone into extreme metal and even everyone who is curious about getting into death metal. But beware, the technical brutality that this band delivers is in fact hard for many to handle. But regardless of that, I would give this record 16/20.