Artist Nile

Selena Salfen

Website
Nile

Just when you thought death metal (or, as some fans and players like to call it, extreme metal) was just a bunch of brutal guitar riffs with gruff lyrics about death, along comes Nile, purveyor of brutal guitar riffs and gruff lyrics about—ancient Egypt? On albums from its 1998 debut Amongst The Catacombs Of Nephren-Ka to its latest, 2009's Those Whom The Gods Detest, the band mixes brutal sludge with Middle Eastern sounds and lyrics inspired by the dual pantheons of Ra and H.P. Lovecraft (100 percent indecipherable without a lyric sheet, of course). Leader Karl Sanders also has a healthy side career—his two solo albums are still full of Nile's horror-Egyptology, but musically lean more toward folk and Middle Eastern sounds.

Updated 01/13/2010