### Rivers Of Nihil: The conscious seed of light

#### 15/10/13 || Ironpants

“Don’t believe the hype.”

Well not really, but take a stroll with me down on Hype Street and let us investigate who lives there.

Rivers of Nihil have been buzzing around on different websites for a while now, and “everybody” is praising them, building up the hype. I seldom believe such things, but you can’t deny the fact, that when hundreds of people are saying almost the same kind of things, there must be some kind of substance to it, right? I mean, even if the world is filled to the brim with idiots, Internet trolls, besserwissers and just plain right out stupid people, they can’t all be wrong? What to do? Of course we check it out ourselves.

First of, these guys have been around for a while, releasing not one but two self financed EP´s and are finally getting reeled in by the mighty Metal Blade company. And to go along with that, they have been set up in the studio together with Erik Rutan, Morbid Angel/Hate Eternal fame who has also made his name as a pretty fine producer through the years. Sprinkle that with a concept idea of making four albums which represent all the seasons of the earth, an album cover painted by legendary Dan Seagrave and a crossover setup of death metal, Meshuggah-like djent and general technicality… well you had me at hello! This looks like from the outside that it is designed to attract both youngsters and old timers?

As always, it´s the music that matters, it doesn’t make a difference if you are Metallica or a mysterious masked act like Ghost. Do Rivers of Nihil live up to the hype? Yeah, kind of… they have what it takes regarding skills in the instrument department. They cook up a rather big, meaty stew with ingredients from all the genres in the darker spectra such as death/black/djent/grind metal. They also tend to lean on the principle of planning their songs in a “unplanned” way, which leaves out a rather big important component – catchiness. Hang on a while here, this isn’t always a bad thing, but by being all out “spacey”, you demand something from your fans, which is attention. I always pay attention when I listen to music for a review, but I don’t like to struggle with it. I fucken hate when I have to approach my music like some MMA-fight. Planning my moves, should I grab or kick, can I get my opponent in a choke hold or should I duck and get him on the rebound?

But there is something here that makes you wanna grab this fucker and punch it in the face repeatedly (I mean that in a good way). To continue my MMA analogy, this one is a better opponent than you, but he doesn’t fight clean. Just when you think you have it in the pocket, it pokes you in the eye. Or when you get that leg lock, it slaps your balls or twist a nipple for you. But you keep returning to it, you want to beat it at its own game. After a few fights, you´ll begin to learn your opponents fighting technique, and you can counteract. I am totally crystal clear here, right?

Well, lets spell it out in a regular way. I don’t really know how I would categorize the music, so lets just call it modern death metal shall we? The majority of the licks and structures are from the death metal area, but for being up to date they incorporate 8-string guitar djent sounds and even breakdowns, but not in a cheesy core way. There is a fair amount of bass-noodling and the drummer earn his keep really well changing between slower snare leads with überfast bass drums and vice versa. They cover almost every dark aspect of the extremer side of metal.

After the almost 2 minute intro, that sends promises of atmospheric black metal (that never really returns on the album), the track ‘Rain eater’ kicks in, which blends extreme metal riffing in the veins of Nile with Meshugga-like djent tones and the roaring vocals from Mr. Dieffenbach. And in this fashion they continue blending, with finesse I might add, different aspects from the extreme metal realm, you get almost everything in one large discount bag here. And that is one of the struggling points with the album in my opinion. It´s almost like they had so many great ideas that they put them in a big piñata and then violently attacked it, then assembled the tunes from the ideas in the order they fell out.

But there are so many excellent parts that appear on the album that it almost doesn’t matter in the end, it´s just a little annoying that they are so scattered. For examples, the sick picking riff that builds up some 30 seconds into the track “Birth of the omnisavior”, and then re-appearing here and there. This song also has a really good “soft” middle part that is superb. And the track “Soil & seed” that with a little imagination gives you an idea of how Morbid Angel should sound today if they had not lost their minds some ten years ago or so. I could drop several more parts in songs, but there is no use cause you don’t wanna read such stuff.

So the verdict: After my earlier mentioned MMA-references, yeah I beat this sucker after a few rounds, not without being bruised though, and I hope the band learns how to construct their songs a little better. Because they have all the other shit rounded up for them, they are canny at their instruments, good vocals, a great production and a good label backing them up. The concept with three more albums representing the other seasons leaves you with a promise of more to come. Still, if you have the patience, give this sucker a little time and it will grow on you and you will learn its structure and appreciate it (maybe even more than me?). So do I believe the hype? Yes, maybe a little. This is some bad-ass stuff, and I understand the hype, but I don’t totally agree though.

Just for being a good guy, I link you to the official stream of the full album so you can make up your own mind.

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Metal Blade Records
- Website: Rivers Of Nihil Facebook
- Band
- Jake Dieffenbach: vocals
- Jon Kunz: guitars
- Brody Uttley: guitars
- Adam Biggs: bass, vocals
- Ron Nelson: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Terrestria I: Thaw
- 02. Rain eater
- 03. Birth of the omnisavior
- 04. Soil & seed
- 05. Central antheneum
- 06. Mechanical trees
- 07. Place of serpents
- 08. Human adaptation
- 09. A fertile altar
- 10. Airless