By Lisa Burke
February 2nd 2016, The Whisky-A-Go-Go, West Hollywood CA: This week in metal I’ve spent three nights out of four at Whisky-A-Go-Go because they’ve been a temporary home to all the great acts of the week. Tuesday night February 2nd, 2016 I arrived a few bands in to see Nile headline the evening. I caught three of the openers Cranial Engorgement, Servile Conceptions, and Taipan.
On this night, crossover thrash project Taipan had six members that looked at bit cramped on stage with Nile’s setup taking up half of the stage space. This band supposedly consists of rotating members from all over the world who get together to bring the thrash. It was not as thrashy as I had hoped, as it mixes with death metal which brings in some brutality but not too much. I enjoyed it for what it was, though I’m not sure three guitar players was entirely necessary, yet it kept things interesting. The vocals were gutteral and well executed, and they at the very least set the mood nicely for the bands to come. I realized I had seen Servile Conceptions play at Complex with Misery Index a few months ago and I enjoyed them with their slightly blackened straight punch-to-the-face death metal sound. The only female member guitar player gives them a unique weapon to capture the audience with, as her excellent hair whipping techniques and fun riffage skills are far from boring. The vocals are decent and brutal as is all of the guitar playing and the drums hit all the targets with ease. The only aspect I feel I’m missing from these guys and girl is that they often seem to play it safe while I believe the addition of a bit more chaos could liven them up. Then again why mess with a good time? Now we move into strange lands and uncharted territory starting with Cranial Engorgement enlightening the stage with their whacked-out death metal. It’s a very fun and strange approach to death metal that these three guys put on with the death vocals as incomprehensible sounding as the illegibility that the death metal band title font can be. Then there is the drumming that jumps from super simple basic beats to let’s hit all five symbols once each and then start flying out the triplets and blast beats and back again. The vocals have that Dying Fetus-esque sound yet much less understandable which in this case is a good aspect. I’m fairly certain one of the only lyrics or stage banter I understood was ‘his name is Satan’ and that’s all I really needed. The bass was out of control in the best way and the mosh pit was like a strange death metal dance party in which the one mosh pit king decided jumping jacks was a good idea. It was definitely an engorgement to my cranium and I enjoyed the silliness of it all. Why wouldn’t a brutal death metal band such as this come from Pomona of all places? I’m guessing they must have stayed up past their curfew a few nights a week to get this all together. If you’re curious to get in on the fun these guys bring to death metal you can catch them again in town soon enough.
Finally, one of the top contenders for best technical death metal is none other than South Carolina’s Nile. It surprises me how underrated this band is in the popular world as I can’t get enough of them. Since 1993 they have put out Egyptian/Mesopotamian themed albums of the smartest technical death metal out there. Peaceful chants with clean, heavier than heavy, brutal to the core riffs and equally balanced drumming sets them high above 99% of the less interesting death metal acts out there. They bring such a beautiful blend of peace and war together in their songs, particularly from the latest album ‘What Should Not Be Unearthed’ which I believe is their smartest work to date. They played about 90 minutes of awesome brutality and yet the mosh pit for this was the most peaceful one I’ve ever been in. It was more like floating in an ocean rubbing against a school of jellyfish but not ever getting stung or feeling the threat. Only one of these dudes has the hair made for the whipping but he does it well. Nile once again in my mind belongs in the category of technically exquisite and equally brutal mixed to the perfect temperature. They jumped from old songs to new songs in a very fun and interesting order and my favorite of the evening was ‘Evil To Cast Out Evil’ from the latest album for its extremely brutal fun time. They ended with the title song of the 2000 album ‘Black Seeds Of Vengeance’ and after the show I felt they had added more fuel to my fire than I’d had all day so I preceded to go to a bar where even the Rolling Stones became a death metal band because that’s all I could hear in my head. If you need me to summarize Nile more let’s put it this way, I can hear them saying in their heads while they play something like “we’re from South Carolina, we like pyramids, and fuck you you’ll never be this smart.” For the record I’m fairly certain I’ve never heard a professional technical death metal band that I didn’t appreciate and frankly I’m not sure how anyone could disagree.
Set List:
01. Sacrifice Unto Sebek
02. Cast Down the Heretic
03. Defiling the Gates of Ishtar
04. Kafir!
05. Hittite Dung Incantation
06. Call to Destruction
07. In the Name of Amun
08. Ithyphallic
09. The Howling of the Jinn
10. What Should Not Be Unearthed
11. The Inevitable Degradation of Flesh
12. Evil to Cast Out Evil
13. Sarcophagus
14. Black Seeds of Vengeance
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