THE NEW FACE OF DEATH
As metal’s ‘nu’ millennium dawned, a certain breed of headbanger was feeling both alienated by mainstream trends, and dispirited by death and black metal scenes well past their prime. We’d already praised Ra for South Carolina’s Egyptophile death cult Nile after their stellar 1998 debut, Amongst The Catacombs, supported with relentless touring and fearsome word of mouth. Hopes and expectations were high, but when exploded in the autumn of 2000 and we were flayed to the wall by its obsessive brute force, finally, death metal had a new scene leader. For Karl Sanders, Nile’s chief songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, guiding light and sole surviving founder member, it wasn’t just vindication for years of struggle, sacrifice and commitment, but also for the highly fraught process of making the LP itself.
