In the vein of technical death metal that Nile have occupied since their debut and flourished in since at least Annihilation of the Wicked, they have remained a consistently reliable force and probably my personal favorite group within that category, balancing impressive technicality with grandiose brutality. The departure of Dallas Toller-Wade, who had become a pillar of Nile's sound by that point, surprised and worried me and at least a few other fans, but the band's emphatic return to form on 2019's Vile Nilotic Rites with new guitarist Brian Kingsland's strong vocal delivery at the forefront showed that they were far from out for the count yet. They took their time with that album, and they took their time again with their 10th and most recent full-length album here, The Underworld Awaits Us All, which follows another personnel change as the group trade bassists yet again and add third guitarist Zach Jeter to the mix. A third guitarist! in Nile! Of all the bands for whom such a move is completely unnecessary and gratuitous, yet also so fucking awesome, Nile has got to be the most apt to fit that super-specific description. With three guitars on board, three vocalists in the mix, and nearly five years in the making, The Underworld Awaits Us All is a record that pushes further along a plateau (though an incredibly high plateau) of diminishing returns at the height of what Nile's favored style of technical death metal can accomplish. Like a dash of pepper into an already-complex and multi-layered soup, more guitars and more vocals layered onto a Nile project really does only serve as a relatively marginal increase in flavor and intensity. Nile have done more with less, however, utilizing dynamism rather than marginal increases in gratuitous extremity, as exemplified on records like Annihilation of the Wicked and Those Whom the Gods Detest, extreme and highly technical albums as well, but albums on which the extremity and technicality was harnessed and directed to serve a greater compositional end rather than its own. This is not to say that there aren't tasty hooks and nasty riffs abound or that the technicality is of a grossly masturbatory nature on the album, but I would say that the approach is redundant and very much feels like Nile retreading very heavily tread ground. They have their niche, and they are certainly reliable in producing the type of death metal anyone should come to expect from them, but I think this album, with the addition of more guitar parts, more growls, more wailing background vocals and choirs, more excessive instrumental layering, and just more of everything shows that Nile have realistically expanded their style to its limits, as the novelty of these new-ish elements proves to be window-dressing on an impressive but otherwise somewhat undercooked and rather unadventurous effort.
