MetalSucks

Nile’s Annihilation of the Wicked was a high water mark in their discography: while surgically precise and blazingly technical, it also was remarkably substantive, full of quality riffs and textures, and, ultimately, the sound of a band growing into its own and getting to the point. But, like most high water marks, it was one Nile couldn’t approach again with Ithyphallic, their (admittedly somewhat underrated) follow-up. Despite only a one album lapse, rounding out the second decade of their career, one could have assumed that Annihilation was the band’s shot wad. And even if it was, it certainly was an impressive masterpiece. However, with Those Whom the Gods Detest, Nile’s latest album, they prove to still have a considerable amount of fight in them, still equipped with almost uncomfortably blistering speed alongside brilliantly crafted slow parts. With bands like Behemoth and Melechesh making serious plays for the history metal throne, Karl Sanders proves that Nile is still the one on it, making some of the most brutal and absurdly heavy metal even when the band’s Egyptian gimmick is put aside.

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A little birdy came and told me that Karl Sanders has never been to Egypt.

What what WHAT?!?!

This perplexing nugget of information came up in conversation because yours truly just booked a flight to Cairo in February. There will definitely be a serious Nile listening session in effect when I visit the pyramids, and, if Egypt’s mobile technology allows, blog and Twitter updates from The Middle East will be aplenty. Better yet, I’ll be traveling with someone who lived there for 2 years and speaks Arabic, and for at least part of the time I’ll be staying with a local metalhead. I’m really looking forward to exploring the underbelly of Egyptian metal culture, whatever that entails… I’ll probably get a lot of confused looks when I tell folks I run a website called “Metal Sucks.”

We’re trying mightily to get Mr. Sanders to accompany us on our journey. We’ll see how that pans out. In the meantime, Noisecreep is streaming Nile’s new track “Utterances of the Crawling Dead” which comes from Nile’s new album Those Whom the Gods Detest, out November 3rd. You should listen to it whilst imagining the hilarity of this Jewish metalhead traipsing around Egypt this coming Winter.

-VN

Nile’s new song, “Permitting the Noble Dead to Descend to the Underworld,” may have the longest title, like, ev-er, but that doesn’t make it any less stellar.

Back in May, the mighty Karl Sanders told me that the new Nile album, Those Whom the Gods Detest, would be “going in lots of different directions,” and would be less “straight ahead death metal.” This song is certainly heavy as a really heavy thing, but I can also definitely see what Sanders was getting at – it’s only just barely traditionalist American death metal.

Check the song out here. Those Whom the Gods Detest drops November 3 on Nuclear Blast.

I haven’t done a blog in a while because the last blog I did really got me thinking about the mentality of people in the metal scene. Most particularly, the mentality of shit talking. We’re all guilty of it. I admitted to shit talking Bring Me The Horizon in magazines over in Europe when I was in God Forbid. I never heard them at that point. But now, I dig them and I feel pretty stupid for slagging them.

In my last blog I mentioned my excitement for the band Eryn Non Dae and how I was going to “borrow” some of their ideas for my new project. First of all, my last blog was PACKED with information about band business, touring and juicy tidbits of amazing knowledge :) But, the funny thing about the last blog was this guy ‘Jamie.’ Out of a five hundred word blog, he took the phrase “borrow ideas” and accused me and God Forbid of riding the coat tails of other popular bands. Killswitch was his biggest gripe. Then it was Opeth.

He claimed Gone Forever (2004) was a Killswitch rip and Earthsblood (2009) was an Opeth rip. This type of thing usually doesn’t bother me. In this instance I was fucking bothered. Jamie and I entered into a written brawl about the history of God Forbid and the intentions of our song writing for the last ten fucking years. Why would I waste my time to defend myself from this sort of claim?

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Wow. For some reason I didn’t think we’d be getting a new Nile album ’til 2010, but their latest offering, Those Whom the Gods Detest, will be out November 3 on Nuclear Blast. Sweeeeet.

Here’s the cover art, which, natch, sticks to the whole Egyptian theme, but I think is still pretty cool:

And here’s what Karl Sanders told me about the new album a few months back:

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When news of Ex Deo, the new band featuring Kataklysm’s Maurizio Iacono, first began to bubble this winter, I yawned. I’ve always thought of Kataklysm as a solid, serviceable but not especially interesting group, so the prospect of a side-project of a band I’m not especially into in the first place wasn’t all that appealing. But now that new tracks from the Ex Deo debut Romulus are starting to surface I’m being forced to reconsider.

This shit is epic!

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It’s Friday, and it’s nice out. I’ma go have a whiskey. Booze and drugs make you look cool and get lots of pussy… it’s true.

Here’s what happened this week that made us batty enough to turn to the dark side:

• We got sick of metal bands doing ironic pop cover songs just in time for a metal band to do another terrible pop cover song.
• We spoke with Barney Greenway of Napalm Death, Chris Arp of Psyopus and Karl Sanders of Nile.
• We were Gay for Gojira and Crazy for The Chariot.
• The Devil Wears Prada: way too popular.
• We looked at new records from Black Math Horseman, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, as well as a new track from Suicide Silence and a new track from Dream Theater.
• xAxlRosenbergx got all anti-straight edge on your asses.

See you next week. Don’t get too stoned tomorrow with yer Uncle Kip.

-VN

When I went to the record release party for Karl Sanders’ new solo album, Saurian Exorcisms (read David Bee Roth’s review here), I was fairly nervous. For one thing, he’s KARL FUCKING SANDERS; as the mastermind behind Nile, he’s been making some of the heaviest, most revered death metal in the world for more than a decade. And for another thing, when I got there, the dude was holding court at the bar, and I didn’t wanna be the one to interrupt his good time so he could so some press (So I made The End Records’ publicist interrupt his good time. Thanks, Geoff!).

But Sanders turned out to be an incredibly nice guy, and, as you’ll read below, our interview really took the shape of an informal chat. After the jump, read Karl’s thoughts on the differences between a Sanders solo outing and Nile records, his relationship with the fan base, being the heaviest act ever to play Ozzfest, what fans can expect from the new Nile album, and more.

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Q: What’s the heaviest part about Nile?
A: Karl Sanders

Now that’s only half a fat joke. Anybody could be the fat guitarist in Nile compared to Dallas Toller-Wade’s scrawny guns, but my main point is that Sander’s has a beastly metal persona to match his physical presence: from being a roadie for Morbid Angel to masterminding one of the heaviest bands ever (fact), the dude is a true metal lifer and the world is a heavier place with him on it. The guy just has great enthusiasm for the genre; in interviews he never hesitates for a second to throw the horns in any situation where it’s even mildly necessary. His fanatic endorsement of guitar companies (usually based on how metal the headstock looks) is probably one of the greatest testaments to career satisfaction I’ve seen. This motherfucker loves doing what he does.

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What’s better than music? FREE MUSIC! Here’s some shit people are currently giving away for the price of air.

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As the founding guitarist in Fear Factory, Dino Cazares became one of the most influential and important figures in metal in the 90s. By the time FF split up in 2002 (and later re-formed without him), he’d also developed a passionate following for his death/grind side project, Brujeria, and, later, Asesino. Little wonder, then, that such a popular, diverse talent should be hand-picked by Monte Connor to be a “team captain” for the all-star Roadrunner United project in 2005, and his almost surprisingly poppy power ballad, the Matt Heafy sung “The End,” became that album’s first and only single and a surprise hit.

Now the tireless Cazares is back with Divine Heresy, a band that combines the sheer brutality of Brujeria with the more mainstream instincts of Fear Factory. Formed with super drummer Tim Yeung (ex-Hate Eternal, Vital Remains) and featuring newcomer Tommy Vext (né Tommy Cummings) on vocals, the band released their debut album, Bleed the Fifth, earlier this year to critical acclaim. Adding ex-Nile bassist Joe Payne to the fold for their live show, the band has begun the process of bringing the message to the people via tireless touring. Axl and Vince recently sat down with Cazares, Yeung, and, later, Payne to discuss Bleed the Fifth, the baggage of fans’ expectations when coming off such popular previous bands, and DH’s current tour supporting Chimaira alongside Kataklysm and Terror.

Oh, and by the way – Dino told us to use that headline.

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