Review Summary: The product of musical staleness swamped in heaviness nearly overdone, yet still retaining promise amidst the muck.
Ithyphallic. Ith-The god of wine. Phallic-a penis. If there were any indicator of the winding awkward road this album would take you on its the title alone. It is almost difficult to not laugh at some of the overall tackiness of Karl Sanders on this record. There is literally a song title called "Papyrus Containing The Spell To Preserves Its Possessor Against Attacks From He Who Is In The Water." It almost makes the album appear as if its going to become some egyptian ejaculatory bull***. To an extent, it is. The drumming becomes bone dry with very few fills on a lot of tracks, and the guitar work becomes a trudging grind just to listen to some times. But the album holds promise, amidst the seemingly vast musical wasteland.
The album is strange. Entire riffs consist of wonky guitar bends. Horns blare in and out at intros and outros, reminding you that you are to be dragged in to the catacombs of Egypt without remorse. I can't say Nile has ever had a most Egyptian sounding album, but aside from "In Their Darkened Shrines", i'd be damned if this were not it. Horns blaring in the first song are so chock full of egyptian stylings it's surprising king tut wasn't composing them. They close out the album in a similar manner, off "Even The Gods Must Die", which is great because you still feel like you are in Niles territory, like their musical integrity hasn't vanished.
In addition, the vocals are still killer. Raspy yells to almost Demilich like gurgles retain the albums dark atmosphere, and still keeping the record at least heavy on a basic level. The growls are still disgustingly demonic, and while the guitars are not the greatest part of this album, good riffs aren't scarce, including the chaotic midsection of the title track "Ithyphallic". Unfortunately most tracks don't seem to have great instrumentation as a whole, things just often sound like the slamming of skins or some masturbatory guitar solo and riffs that sound like someone hit the 1/4th speed button on YouTube. However, there is "Papyrus Containing The Spell..." which is short and sweet, which is a blessing with an album where a single chord is stretched to twice its need length and a ten minute song can be trimmed to five or six.
I guess this is what makes this album a dissapointment. You expect more from Nile, for the long tracks to warrant their extraneous times. For everything to be perfectly composed, and this album just doesn't do that. It is sloppy and over stays its welcome and even a little creatively dry sometimes. It's certainly still good-solid riffs aren't absent and Karl Sanders has great gutturals and shouts-but it is still not what you expect from Nile.
