Nile, "Vile Nilotic Rites" (Nuclear Blast)
Nile may no longer give you a headache. Good thing? Bad thing? Debatable, but the way Brit producer Neil Kernon (mixer for Yes, Brian Auger, Just Priest) had been recording the South Carolina pharaonic concept metal outfit from 2005 to 2015 made the migraine seem like an essential factor, derived from the ultrahard way the weirdshredding guitar of Karl Sanders and the ceaseless doublekick drums of George Kollias clanged on your ears. Now that the band has two new members, and Sanders has seized the knobs himself, you may find yourself listening to a whole album instead of running for the earplugs after three songs.
Not that "Vile Necrotic Rites" is soft -- images of thrusting spears and slit throats will still dance behind your eyes -- but a touch of extra atmosphere makes a delta of difference. Grating factory noise, spooky symphonic choruses, Eastern pluckings of balalaika and sitar (the kinds of interpolations employed on other albums) now feel like sensual connective tissue rather than cute coffee breaks. Yet the meat remains: the heavy, proggy whirlwinds of riffs and rhythms.
Legitimate epics include "Seven Horns of War" and "The Imperishable Stars Are Sickened," the latter one of the finest/funniest titles metal has ever forged, reinforced by the music itself, which executes creative transitions among thick acoustic strings, choral deviltry and chaotic riffage, now abetted by the bass and guitar of Brad Parris and Brian Kingsland.
Listening to this enveloping but punishing bigness, you could feel nestled in the womb, blissed out and strangely excited by the horrors to come. Glitch, anvil echoes, Valkyrie chants -- "Vile" must have been as much fun to make as it is to listen to. And fun might not have been a word you used to associate with Nile.
Gatecreeper, "Deserted" (Relapse).
Younger Arizona thrash/sludgemeisters Gatekeeper have the opposite problem: There's nothing especially irritating about them to start with. Good riffs, meaty guitar tones, a casually hard-driving drummer -- well, we like those things. Most successful bands, though, also give us something to cringe at, such as Axl Rose's whiny posing, or Zakk de la Rocha's self-satisfied sermonizing, or Trey Azagthoth's way of pissing off trained guitarists, or Lars Ulrich's old-fashioned impassioned trashcan drumming. Whether you like those things or not, they get your attention. Maybe Gatecreeper should buy a balalaika.