MB Metal Classics: "In Their Darkened Shrines" by Nile
 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ed_Shrines.jpg

Okay, this was the first one to come up at random. Let's talk about it chief, why not? Vote, but please write a line or two at least for your vote to count. You know the drill: anything above a 7 gets into the MB Metal Classics list.

I'm listening to it for the first time in a while and it doesn't grab me like it used to. The death metal doesn't particularly stand out, the production is sterile and compressed, and unless there's a cool Egyptian gimmick going on the tracks quickly start to run into each other.

I'm the same, to be fair. DM is not my thing as you know, and the only thing that's keeping my interest in this is the link with Lovecraft. Otherwise it's just kind of playing while I do other stuff and not making any real impression on me.

About three-quarters of the way through now.

It just don't sound wild enough for the kind of death metal it's tryin' to be. It's heavy enough, just no riffs with the wide-eyed intent to maim and kill.

The last few tracks aren't bad. I may listen to it again before I vote. There is a nice, as you mentioned, sort of eastern/Egyptian vibe to some of the music. I hate the vocals of course, but I think I could get into some of this music. Maybe.

The vocals aren't anything special tbh. They're not especially bad, just more death metal vocals you didn't need to hear but that do their job of existing as death metal vocals on a death metal album.

The big problem seems to be that you have decent brutal death metal (its own problem) and rather cool Egyptian sounding gimmicks but not really much to justify lumping them together. There's a pre-Nile band who actually do pretty much the same thing Nile do while doing much better to justify the juxtaposition.

I suspect that a key member(s) of Lykathea Aflame left the band before they became Nile and they could never quite get it down like they had before. Vocals are still meh, but they have a much greater melodic sense than Nile afaic.

I picked this particular album because it's one of the ones that most Nile fans will tell you is a classic. Personally, I think their newer albums are better. At the Gates of Sethu is my personal favorite. I decide what album to pick for this thread a bit differently than in the album club, where I'm just going to pick albums that I personally like.

I mean, I like this album. It's good stuff. I like the atmosphere, the very low end guitars, the bussy riffing and the horror movie vocals. It's Nile by the numbers, but then, what Nile album isn't? I do like this album a lot, but it's pretty much straight death metal and nothing else. I'm not typically interested in the genre, but Nile speak to me somehow.

I voted 8. At the Gates of Sethu would be a 9 or 10, but like I said, I chose to let the Nile fanbase have a say in what to recommend.

All right. Exactly one person voted (and we know who that was) so this obviously ain't making it in. Sorry Shaz.

There. I gave it a 6. Middling death metal but the Egyptian **** puts it up a point.