Freaking awesome, man. I'm SO seriously horny for the new Nile...

The album leaked as an FYI for anyone wondering. All in all was rather lame. Nothing really memorable about it, THOSE FUCKING BACKUP... "SHOUTS", OR WHATEVER THEY ARE NEED TO DIE. Kollias' drumming was pretty stellar as always, but other than that it was pretty lame. The riffs, vocals, overall atmosphere, all really left much to be desired in my opinion, at least compared to Nile's past releases. And is it just me, or does that guitar tone seem a little... out of place?

The production is too clean, but once you get used to that, it's another reliably good Nile effort; all the elements from them that you expect/want, and yes, some very good drumming (though still not as good as Tony on Shrines...).

Well damn, the track I posted gave me hope for the album so I really hope it's not a dud.

I need to get around listening to it but I'm bogged down with the new Dying Fetus and Gojira lol. 2012 has actually been a decent year for metal so far for me.

Underwhelmed so far but I need to listen to it more to judge it correctly. The production and and the, oftentimes, half baked riffs are my main complaints at the moment.

Was expecting much more out of Kollias based on what Karl has said. As stated by another poster, Tony was better on Shrines.

Finished my 1st listen, and seriously, there's nothing wrong with it. What the fuck do people complain about? Production's good, guitar tone suits it, and referring to the backup shouting thing... I'm cool with it.

But whatever, I've heard some killer tracks and riffs. Might spin it again tonight.

i thought it was decent enough; my only complaint is the occasionally derpy vocals (and maybe the production could have been a little less laboratoryesque)

of course that's only after the first listen, so i might have a different opinion a week or a month from now

I got it yesterday! And have been playing it in repeat since then! Very good Stuff! The Song "When My Wrath Is Done" will be the "Hit" Of This Album for sure!

I miss the old vocals Nile used to have. The ones from the first few albums. The vocals now are so...lame. Also, this guitar tone can fuck off. I really think it sounds odd.

Although one of the early samples released made me think this would be no good that's far from the case. I managed to hear the whole thing through today and didn't find a track I didn't like save for the aforementioned 'The Fiends Who Come to Steal the Magick of the Deceased', which didn't really do it for me.

Some amazing stuff on here and I've never been much of a Nile fan, per se. I'll be giving this a few more listens, at least. It has my attention.

I'm with Misfit, even though I liked the aforementioned track quite a bit. Once again, many of my MA peers have left me perplexed.

Ive listened to about 75% of it and it sounds like typical Nile. The drums are definitely a standout.

eh. . . it's alright. One thing I must comment on is Dallas' vocals. I don't know what the hell happened but it definitely does not sound like the low, bellowing grunt that he gave us on every other record he did vocals on besides this one. I guess he just got tired of doing those low vocals, but his new style is annoying as hell.
This is a disappointment to me, to be honest. I like Supreme Humanism of Megalomania and The Fiends Who Come To Steal The Magick of the Deceased, but that's about it.

The guitar tone is fucking fine. I don't get the bitching about it. I see why people hate those vocals, though. Might be a little bit of a grower.

I don't get the complaints either. I think releasing The Fiends... first was maybe a strange choice and threw some people off. The rest of the album is pretty much straight ahead Nile. The tone is fine, you can hear the frantic riffing clearly. Vocals are good too IMO.

The tone is weak and doesn't suit the band at all. I haven't really followed Nile for awhile, but I'm not loving this.

The production works well for this album. Even though I liked the production on AotW the best out of all their albums, I can't picture songs like "Fiends" having that kind of production.

They sound a lot more inspired on this newer stuff. Kind of shocked by the complaints on here, to be honest.

The sample tracks remind me a lot of early Nile, mainly the vocals and songwriting. Production and guitars don't sound as good as TWTGD but aren't bad either. I need to listen to the full album before I form and opinion, but I'll be surprised if I don't like this.

track by track album breakdown, cool.
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=175792

lol @ the mock track list in the comment sections. . . yes Karl indeed has been spending time writing complex riffs and eating McDonald's

yeah i laughed aloud

1. Enduring The Eternal Line At The Golden Corral Buffet
2. The Fiends Who Come To Steal The Last Piece Of Pie
3. The Inevitable Digestion Of 10 Pounds Of Flesh
4. When My Dinner Is Done
5. Slaves Of Cake
6. The Gods Who Light Up The Grill At Benihanna
7. Natural Liberation Of Poo Through The Ritual Of Defecation
8. Ethno-McDonalds Cannibalisms
9. Tribunal Of The Denny's
10. Supersized Burgers Of Megalomania
11. Lap Band Surgery Of The Iniquitous

Hahaha, that's genius.

I think it's pretty good, not as instantly hooky, song-y or memorable as the last album, but I find what they're doing here to be pretty fun. I'd still take it over Ithyphallic, it won't be on my best of list though.

Indeed, it might not be their best, but its still kicking asses. It actually sounds very inspired and the vocals sound kind of old school nile.

Dont worry, its better than ityphallic.

I've only heard a preview which was a medley of some of the tracks, and my immediate thought was that the riffs weren't bad but the tone and production made them sound so thin that it really wasn't pleasurable, not to mention extremely un-heavy. The vocals were close to terrible IMO, I mean I don't mind deviation but after so many albums of doing great gutturals if you are going to change the vocal style at least make a powerful impression, it just sounds weak and the backing vocals don't help at all. Drums are as tight as Karl's In Their Darkened Shrine era clothing would fit now, as usual...

http://prometheusbsubrick.blogspot.com/ ... eview.html

My full review of the album.

Sorry to hear that you didn't like it much. I'm pumped to hear the "weird vocals" everyone's talking about, though. Vocalists deviating from the norm in extreme metal has always appealed to me (like in the new Cattle Decap to give a recent example).

Your review is spot-on, Subrick. I was listening to the whole thing on Youtube, and rather than being blown away by it, I kept getting reminded of songs from Annihilation of the Wicked. Or bored. Quite frankly, the only excellent (and memorable) song is the one that threw a lot of people off: The Fiends Who Come to Steal the Magick of the Deceased. The rest is just Nile by-the-numbers.

Certainly not one of the stronger death metal releases this year.

It's taking me a while to really get into this album, but I do like it more with each listen.

i'd consider that a good thing

Karl posted this on facebook:

Karl Sanders (Nile)
About the new disc and all the Hate coming from the download crowd -

It is Dead Obvious from the you tube reviewers , and from online comments , excatly who has the downloaded ripped version , and who has the actual CD . Sethu is a ricicuously clean album ; which is just not going to sound as good : A. If You are listening on your laptop instead of an actual music system , B. Because The ripped version mp3 file compression is very unkind to the squeaky clean production of Sethu . We made this dic to sound Amazingly clean and clear - to hear every last note- for the benefit of people who actually buy CD's and listen to them on actual music systems. The illegal download crowd is NOT who made this disc for. So there.

I have to pitch in and say that while I do understand the sentiment Karl seems to be just a bit in the dark where it concerns compression rates! I think he probably means that the downloadable promo doesn't fully exhibits the album's sound quality, but the way he words it makes him sound as if an MP3 copy has no "power" to present Nile's new album. I haven't heard it yet but according to all the gossip I think I will refrain myself for a few months until the dust has settled.

First Nile album I have really liked. Love the clean production here

PLEASE tell me you never got around to listening to Shrines...

The vocals has lost a lot of strenght, and at times they sound weak and weird,the songs are not bat but I was expecting something more brilliant. Anyway, I have to listen to it more.

I did. I liked the longest two tracks of the album.

The drums stand out, that's for sure. THe mix seems like it's 4/5 drums! Did they forget that metal's supposed to be guitar music?

It's a good album. The guitar definitely needs to be louder in the mix, and for the love of God, turn up the damn bass! Sometimes I think I can hear it, but then I realize that it's just my mind forcing my ears to hear something that basically isn't there, simply because the liner notes say it is. The drums are damn good, but fuck those triggered bass drums. I understand it's par for the course in technical death metal, but come on, we need to draw a line somewhere. On the positive side, there are some really strong riffs throughout the album, some of the catchiest they've written in a long time. Dallas's vocals are strange. They're not really bad, but I miss the predominance of lower growls, as others have said. I couldn't give a rating at this point. I like it. I don't love it obviously, but I like it.

When I heard some songs online I thought it sounded kind of bad. Listening to the CD right now, and I actually like it. I don't see a problem with the vocals. They are different, but not bad.