Band:	Nile
Album:	At The Gate Of Sethu
Style:	Brutal death metal, Technical death metal
Release date:	June 29, 2012
A review by:	Baz Anderson

01. Enduring The Eternal Molestation Of Flame
02. The Fiends Who Come To Steal The Magick Of The Deceased
03. The Inevitable Degradation Of Flesh
04. When My Wrath Is Done
05. Slaves Of Xul
06. The Gods Who Light Up The Sky At The Gate Of Sethu
07. Natural Liberation Of Fear Through The Ritual Deception Of Death
08. Ethno-Musicological Cannibalisms
09. Tribunal Of The Dead
10. Supreme Humanism Of Megalomania
11. The Chaining Of The Iniquitous
12. Enduring The Eternal Molestation Of Flame [instrumental version] [bonus]
13. The Inevitable Degradation Of Flesh [instrumental version] [bonus]

Nile have been going for a long time, and are one of the few death metal bands that have been so consistently brilliant with each release for this long. Each album in the catalogue has been subtly different, and number seven At The Gate Of Sethu is no different.

Where the band's last album had some awfully long songs on it, At The Gate Of Sethu feels more compact. The album is also slightly more technical and feels well thought out with a lot of attention to detail, but it does lack the killer death metal punch that Nile have been so capable of delivering in the past.

At The Gate Of Sethu is then perhaps the first Nile album that initially underwhelms, but at the same time it is the first Nile album that gains mileage the more it grows on you. It is easy to become complacent listening to Nile because we have had six previous albums to adjust to the horrifically fast tempo and clinical tightness the band play with, but this album is just as technically impressive, if not more so than anything the band has put out before.

This album is anything but straightforward, but it may be the lack of the more primitive sections that give At The Gate Of Sethu the impression as not quite being the unrelenting, crushing death metal machine the band have been in the past. Instead the album has short, controlled bursts of brutality complimented excellently with great timing and guitar work.

Maturity is such a cliché notion in metal, but on this album Nile sound much more self-assured and confident of who they are as a band. This may be the tightest and most meticulous Nile we have heard, and in those aspects perhaps the best Nile we have ever heard. The only aspect slightly lacking from At The Gate Of Sethu is just one more step of raw brutality.

Nile have almost created the complete album; At The Gate Of Sethu might not be initially as explosive as some in the past, but given the chance and the technical and professional prowess of the band here is like never before.

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Death metal
Nuclear Blast
USA
Length: 47:33