Review Summary: Ra/raw music. The sun god is pleased.
“The music is a full length exploration of the atmospheric interludes heard on Nile's previous albums, and still draws on ancient Iraqi themes for inspiration. Sanders also drew inspiration from other types of music such as Tibetan, Indian and Arabic.”
- Wikipedia
This is a strange album. It’s lusciously lovely, with exotic sounding instruments altogether bringing in magnetizing melodies and an ambience that sucks you in. The kind of which either sounds like a shepherd travelling to the nearest market, or sounds like the ghosts of the Egyptian gods casually posessing people in order to maim and enslave people, and potentially have tuna fish sandwiches on top of corpses while raping camels in a profane, detestable orgy while screaming ARRA ARRA! DAGON DAGON! The star of the album is the guitarwork, which is obvious, since the man that created this album is also the man that is the guitarist from the technical death metal band Nile. He is the man with the plan, with more inspiration than a high schooler excited to present their project in front of the classroom, who is specifically attempting to impress his crush, and it shows in this album. Though, one can’t help but wonder what type of mystical desert fruit he ate from, without looking up the effects, in order to produce this album.
The album plays out like Karl is saying, “*** you ***ers, I was born in Ancient Egypt and that’s that, bitch”. The sentiment is entertainingly indulgent and merited and also ridiculous. The result is as weird as ordering a steak dinner in a candy store while throwing rhinoceros feces at customers all to the tune of Beethoven. In conclusion, this is a good album. It’s a little ***ed up, which I like, but not too much, hence it’s not 5/5, but damn it all, I had a great time. This *** is more addictive than being raised as a Christian, and I would know. This may not be as great as Nile itself, but it certainly conjers an image… mostly Hell. As ambient music it succeeds, as Halloween music it is succesful, and as successfully full ambient music, it succeeded ambiently. Not bad for a nerdy guitar player obsessed with Egyptian *** who most likely poops out Ankhs and worships Anubis.
