Listen up people this is Egyptian death metal at its most raw . You heard right, Egyptian-death-metal. To be honest Nile actually hale from South Carolina - the only people seeing pyramids in South Carolina have let their crack habit get away from them. The band somehow manages to combine modern day death metal with ancient Egyptian historical undertones. Which, believe it or not, pretty much kicks ass. This album is filled with so many occult references that it would make even the most obedient Christian soldier tremble with fear. When I opened up the case, a couple dozen rabid locust scurried up my arm, down my esophagus and soon began to gnaw away at my blasphemous soul. For his part, King Osiris just sat back and laughed - nibbling away at the entrails of the unfortunate, all the while scratching his lap-dog behind the ears - but I don't have to tell you that.

The lyrics are downright intense. Everything is lashed together with plenty of "Thines" "Thous" "Shallts" and "Arts" like they are quoting from some unholy scripture recovered in a cave beneath the carcass of a beheaded jackal. "Chapter of Obeisance Before Giving Breath To the Inert One in the Presence of the Crescent Shaped Horns." Not only did I not make this up, but it's not even lyrics - it's the title of a song! Rolls right off your forked tongue. The lyric writing duties fall to Nile's warped singer/guitarist, Karl Sanders.- who actually gets alot of this stuff from his own interpretations of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. ('Emphasis on the "hi"). Oh, and the fun is only starting. Take "Chapter of Obeisance," turn up the bass knob to full blast on this puppy and receive a punishing, baptism of fire that will either make a convert of you or obliterate enough synapses in your cortex to save you a bundle on that lobotomy you were thinking about treating yourself to.

Nile has offered the perfect summer album for those who enjoy hanging out with friends and maybe sacrificing a lamb in their basement - to satisfy the Death-metal Underlord's never-ending thirst for blood. Good times. "Annihilation of the Wicked" impales the listener and casts them into a black hole of demonic carnage where fearsome metal riffs forged in the innermost recesses of darkness and doom, play hell on the sweet flesh of the unsuspecting. Chambers of metal madness that not even Dante could have envisioned - a grim netherworld of twisted metal madness where not even the purest of souls could return un-changed.

Listening to Nile is what it must be like to hang out with Death. Picture the darkest of lairs with bodies impaled on stakes in front of a mountain of flames and a dark lord sitting with red eyes in the background. Basically bring your holy water and hang on to your everlovin' ass. Among the tracks on Annihilation of the Wicked are three nine-minute songs packed to the brimstone with guitar solos that assault the senses like hot coals dropped inside your sliced-open maggot-infested spine.

I've never followed these guys or even heard them before this album, so my credibility is all fucked. I do know that they have like five other
albums and have been together for about ten years. Bottom line, this sounds different and original in terms of death metal. If you're into metal then this is good for a metal album. Not as crazy as Mayhem or Deicide - but close.

It's almost worth the 15 bucks to own the hidden track - a fairly faithful cover of Garth Brooks - "Friends in Low Places." Okay I'm kidding about that. but this is a pretty fucking good record - if you're up to it.