American death metal icons NILE recently announced their highly-anticipated 10th album, The Underworld Awaits Us All, out August 23 via Napalm Records, and the first reviews are in! The album’s breakneck first single, “Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes”, arrived to much acclaim from long time fans, and was instantly dubbed by Consequence as “kinetic, technically dense brutality”, while MetalSucks hailed it as “face disfiguring death metal from start to finish”.
The album’s second single and most succinct standout, “To Strike with Secret Fang”, pushes that unrelenting prowess to the next level. Out today via a new lyric video and streaming on all major platforms, the track blends low-end punishment with blackened death metal inspiration, rhythmic vocal mastery and brutal conviction. Listen below!
Alongside the single, NILE have also announced their upcoming 2025 USA co-headline tour with death metal greats Six Feet Under. The tour begins January 7, 2025 in Nashville, TN and will feature support from Psycroptic and Embryonic Autopsy. Tickets for this unmissable onslaught go on sale this Friday, July 12 at 10:00AM EDT! Pre-show meet and greets will also be available for both headliners. Visit https://nile-official.com/ for tickets and more information, and see below for all tour dates.
NILE’s Karl Sanders comments on the new track and tour announcement, “‘To Strike with Secret Fang’ is a straight-to-the-point, uptempo blasting venomous assassin’s blade of a metal song. It’s the shortest track off the new record, The Underworld Awaits us All, which of course in Nile fashion has several long form complex metal compositions. But ‘Fang’ instantly goes right for the throat and will no doubt be a burner for live Nile shows.
“Speaking of, Nile is very pleased for the opportunity to once again share the stage with the guys in Six Feet Under and Psycroptic. We are also primed and ready to play some of the killer songs from the new Nile album for metal fans, as well as classic Nile tracks that have become live favorites over the years. We have no doubt that metal will take place!”
Boasting airtight technicality and unrelenting brutality, the new album pushes each member of NILE – founding mastermind/guitarist Karl Sanders, longtime drum master George Kollias, vocalist/guitarists Brian Kingsland and Zach Jeter, and bassist Dan Vadim Von – to their furthest extremes both in artistry and performance. Once again produced and recorded at Sanders’ own Serpent Headed Studios in Greenville, South Carolina, the band returned to Vile Nilotic Rites engineer Mark Lewis (Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, Whitechapel) for mixing and mastering.
Facing the planet’s inevitable end with their diehard fans at their side, NILE waste absolutely no time with histrionics on The Underworld Awaits Us All, distilling their trademark Egyptology driven tempest down to its most streamlined essence. Charging into battle as its namesake depicts, “Stelae of Vultures” makes an immediate impact with dissonant guitar chords and supernatural drumming, teasing the auditory evisceration to come. Topped by impressive screams and gutturals, the track leads into “Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes”, citing the Egyptian Book of the Dead’s 181st chapter.
The album’s most succinct track, “To Strike with Secret Fang”, blends low-end punishment with blackened death metal inspiration, before album standouts such as “Naqada II Enter the Golden Age” and “Overlords of the Black Earth” breathe new life with thrash and fusion experimentation, as well as real human choirs – adding a raw element to the NILE fold. Each track soars as a technical tour-de-force – featuring career-defining extreme drumming from Kollias, as well as razor-sharp soloing from all three active guitarists and palpable bass exploration. A perfect example of this equation is pinnacle burner “Under the Curse of the One God”, combining sinister atmospherics with breakneck pacing and whirlwind, vicious riff acrobatics.
Throughout the remainder of its 11 pummeling tracks and intricate interludes, NILE masters full-tilt speed and ferocious musicality. 30 years into their heavy reign, The Underworld Awaits Us All proves that NILE is marching onward and undoubtedly upward, bleeding metal for their fandom for as long as the sands of time will allow.
Pre-Order The Underworld Awaits Us All
https://lnk.to/NILE-TUAUA/napalmrecords
The Underworld Awaits Us All’s mind-bending art was once again envisioned and created by Michał ‘Xaay’ Loranc, with reference to the cycle of life and judgment at its end.
The Underworld Awaits Us All track listing:
Stelae of Vultures
Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes
To Strike with Secret Fang
Naqada II Enter the Golden Age
The Pentagrammathion of Nephren-Ka
Overlords of the Black Earth
Under the Curse of the One God
Doctrine of Last Things
True Gods of the Desert
The Underworld Awaits us All
Lament for the Destruction of Time
NILE Australia & New Zealand Tour 2024:
October 15, 2024 – Perth, AU @ Milk Bar / Civic Hotel
October 16, 2024 – Adelaide, AU @ The Gov
October 17, 2024 – Brisbane, AU @ The Brightside
October 18, 2024 – Melbourne, AU @ Max Watts
October 19, 2024 – Hobart, AU @ Uni Bar
October 20, 2024 – Sydney, AU @ Crowbar
October 22, 2024 – Auckland, NZ @ Whammy