From the crocodile laden provinces, beset by sand imbued pyramids, ancient scrolls and long forgotten death chants emerges NILE. Poised to annihilate, lying in wait like venomous vipers, Karl Sanders and his scarab crew strike the ritual gong fervently and get the proceedings underway. Instantly noticeable is the squeaky clean, near pop sheen production of Neil Kernon, notorious for clearing the dirt out of extreme metal's often unnecessarily clogged valves. Surprisingly, it works. Cleansing the air of the unwanted frisson and underlying non-purposeful atonal residue with a mix befitting Brittany Spears, Kernon enhances every technical nugget typically lost in the overwhelmingly distorted tornado that encapsulates this style.

Beginning regally with "Enduring The Eternal Molestation Of Flame" NILE smites your puny existence, obliterating it like the tools the ancients used to dismantle and remove the brains of their kin before burial. "The Fiends Who Come To Steal The Magick Of The Deceased" leaves your hexed and beheaded carcass to the mongrels of the desert and "Slaves Of Xul" blight your subconscious with the curse of the Pharaoh's. The lyrics to "The Inevitable Degradation Of Flesh" praise death in a rather studious manner , simultaneously recalling humanity's folly and the once reigning empire of Egyptian lore. King Tut,Tutankhamun , and Thoth are surely kissing their rubies in the afterlife.

It's hard to conceive that founder Karl Sanders is fifty years old. He has most assuredly been blessed by the preservation techniques of tanis leaf and sage and will be further acclimated and moistened in mud dipped bandages for his final journey. In the meantime his majesty concentrates on crafting riffs so royally superior they would cripple a lesser man, sending his inferior digits into states of petrification. let us not forget the bestiary company of Dallas Toler Wade on cobra striking guitar and diaphragm tearing vocals as well as the lightning fast serpent coil percussive strikes of George Kollias.

 Case in point "Natural Liberation Of Fear Through The Ritual Deception Of Death", this one will frazzle your cerebral cortex, especially the ones with stupid and overly sensitive written all over them. Crushing, steamrolling, mentally and physically demanding and most impressively fatigue inducing. The ending riff from 2:59 to the songs climax is improbably inhuman. Check it out or be forever plagued by a thousand rotten mummy hexes!