Impressions in depth, heat, sand, dust and weight. The soundtrack is ultra-heavy death metal. And the sun is not the only force capable of killing you. In the waters of Nile flows lead. And it smashes. The muddy tides of the river bear the heavy dust of ages. Under the haze of the Egyptian sun the brain refuses to function rationally and the look draws hieroglyphs out of the cracked backs of the crocodiles, cut through the river surface like open wounds... Suddenly darkness falls. The eyes start spinning madly in the orbits, out in the distance the priests of Seth sing chants of war, and the last thing the fading sight sees is the receding waters, laving a grinning skull... The songs in “Ithyphallic” draw the same associations - they shed slow, heavy and unfathomable until they drag in the whirlpool of their deadly grip the consciousness of the unprotected (by tight nerves or at least by enchanted papyrus containing a spell against the one dwelling in the water). Nile led the ones who dared on the way, starting in the catacombs of Nephren-Ka, sowing the black seeds of vengeance and annihilating the wicked. They lost some slaves of belief, they gained new ones, they shook off the debris of their previous albums with every next in a row, but they always kept the fierce core, the morbid mummy under the golden mask in the face of Karl Sanders, and they never left the raw brutality and epic bombast in the writing of their music. The current station among the boundless Egyptian deserts is called “Ithyphallic”. A stroke of gong, a ceremonial oratory, and the beginning of the album lands with “What Can Be Safely Written”. In the songs the dark, insanely heavy and slow hymns alternate with speeding, common to a nock of savage scorpions’ passages. The title track itself is a combination of these two ways and ends with a sluggish riff like a falling in slow motion giant hammer smashing stone blocks to dust. Here is also the compulsory song with longwinded title. Besides its long name, “Papyrus Containing the Spell to Preserve Its Possessor against Attacks from He Who Is in the Water” shines with a great hymnal structure. The track is one of these that make you slowly and rhythmically count the decapitating rhythm with a raised fist and scream the chanting chorus with the last remaining vocal cords. An interesting way of expression is also that the drums are not always the motor of the speed of the songs; as a catalyst come the fillings on the high tones of the low-tuned guitars, while often in the slow compositions the guitar selfishly lets a single extended chord in a few seconds, and George Kollias nails madly on the skins. Does it remind you of somebody? Yes, Nile continue to read the directions inherited by the unattainable Morbid Angel, but they open their own way of uncompromising metal and blasting black hymns. And without being different of the previous works of the band, this CD finds its place as the next steady stone in the foundations of the pyramid of its art. So, while waiting for a new album by the Angels, you can sink in the dark waters of Nile. These guys know no mercy.