Nile

The nice thing about demos is hearing what a band sounded like in their formative years. For example, who knew Nile started a s a thrash metal band amirite? Actually should be obvious since death metal takes so many cues from thrash and there's an interview with Dallas and Karl doing a rundown on how to play Black Seeds of Vengeance where Karl comments that they like the eastern vibe because they think it sounds like Slayer and sounding like Slayer is the first step to sounding good, so really, it shouldn't come as a surprise, but I digress, thrash metal Nile.

Now the copy of this I actually listened to was called Worship the Animal, a later rerelease of the same demo, I made sure to take a look at the original version on YouTube for consistency before writing this. Its a cool little demo though. First track is almost purely thrash, a thinner guitar tone but slightly punkier riffs, yells instead of screams, pretty basic structure and lacking the technical elements. Fun listen though, the vocals are vaguely reminiscent of James Hetfield and some Dimebag influence on the solo. This is then followed up by the title track which is a completely different beast, proper death metal growls and groove riff that is both monstrously heavy as well as catchy played over some synth choruses with "Worship the animal" acting almost like a sing along hook in proto death metal style.

And after that there's no need for a track by track breakdown. Nepenthe through Mecca (3 songs total) return to the earlier thrash influences from the opening track but with longer songs, all clocking in at over 7 minutes and replacing the Dimebag solo influences with a more technical shredding akin to what they would perform in their death metal days to come as well as longer and more complex instrumental passages/

All that being said, its well mixed and recorded album, better production than some other actual albums in fact and certainly very impressive for a death metal demo. Everything including bass can clearly be heard.

To this date, Nile has puked seven full-lengths of their own brand of Egypt themed, cryptic yet epic death metal, and throughout their career they have garnered more and more publicity and why the hell not – even I really like the band, and it is actually one of the only popular death metal bands that I follow. Worship the Animal takes us back to the band's first steps even before the major debut Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka, and shows how different but still same the band sounded almost twenty years ago.

Starting with ”La Chant du Cygre”, things seem really different compared to the Nile of today. There's more thrash metal in the riffs as well as vocals, and the vaguely uncommon time signatures (a joke if you compare to the complexities of nowadays) actually remind me of Meshuggah's early steps in the first half of the 90s. On the follow-up ”Worship the Animal” the band shifts into more familiar Nile sound with an eerie synth choir. However, it's the third track ”Nepenthe” that takes the spot of providing most Nile esque material with its meandering riffs and rhythms, a definite highlight of the compilation EP along with the title track. ”Surrounded by Fright” and ”Mecca” are a tad less impressive lengthy pieces but nonetheless enjoyable documents capturing the evolution of the band.

Considering that this is an old, before unreleased bunch of demo level songs, it comes as a surprise how good the audio sounds, and it's actually a lot more punchy, spacey and detailed than the debut album. The actual compositions might not be essential, but a diehard fan of the group should most certainly invest into Worship the Animal, and not only to complete his/her Nile collection, but also because the content is a lot better than one could have expected from such a rudimentary recording.

3 / 5
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