Nile

It's been said that one of humanity's greatest attributes is our desire to remember. In light of the ancient world's epic tales of invasion, occupation, conquest, enslavement, domination, and all-out war, situating history against the equally violent passages of death metal music in such a thorough and reverent way had yet to be achieved until the birth of NILE.

Formed in 1993 by Sanders, bassist / vocalist Chief Spires, and drummer Pete Hammoura, then later augmented in 1996 by second guitarist Dallas Toler-Wade, NILE's symphonic arrangements unleashed a unique approach to their uncompromising technicality and Middle Eastern-tinged songwriting with their two EPs, Festivals Of Atonement (1995), Ramses Bringer Of War (1997), and their first full-length, 1998's Amongst The Catacombs Of Nephren-Ka. Rightfully earning themselves a world tour with Morbid Angel and a festival debut at Dynamo Open Air in 1999, NILE were quickly gaining an onslaught of new fans that revered them as one of metal's most devastating new bands. Once home (and with the assistance of drummer Derek Roddy after Hammoura tore his shoulder), Sanders and company began work assembling and arranging the song fragments and ideas that were fermenting while on the road. Every night was spent obsessively researching (the lyrics alone took a year to finalize!), composing, arranging and re-arranging before entering Soundlab Studios in Columbia, South Carolina with producer/engineer Bob Moore to record the result of their meticulous labor: the masterfully grandiose and cinematic Black Seeds Of Vengeance, Terrorizer Magazine's coveted "Album Of The Year" for the year 2000.

No band has ever committed themselves so deeply within a subject matter as has NILE, as demonstrated by the tracks "Ithyphallic," "What Can Safely Be Written," "The Essential Salts," and the ravaging "Papyrus Containing The Spell To Preserve Its Possessor Against Attacks From He Who Is In The Water." "Karl Sanders," observes Decibel Magazine, "plays with one foot on the Great Pyramid, the other on Sirius B, and every atom of his considerable technique harnessed in the service of the Other." Noted for their individuality, NILE inspire the exploration of new paradigms among their colleagues. " Ithyphallic is doomy, twisted, and warped, yet intricately crafted with brutal and intense clarity and pronunciation," writes Brave Words And Bloody Knuckles, "a scourge that proves NILE is one of the most important death metal bands today."

If history is fundamentally a record of human interaction and if possessing knowledge of the past can grant us the key to our future, the question begs to be asked: are we doomed to live out the same horrors, the same curses, the same trappings of greed as have so many civilizations before us? Come. Your personal history lesson awaits you.