More often than not, when one door closes another one opens in its’ place… or maybe it’s the “Everything happens for a reason” bag???? Anyway! Long story short, we won’t be covering Boston Calling this year. It is what it is. And in this case “it” means we get to head out to Worcester instead and catch Nekrogoblikon finally as part of a massive bill that sees John Goblikon (You’re keeping up with Right Now, right???) and friends merging tours with Rivers Of Nihil’s current headline run. And that brings us to today. And the upcoming new Rivers Of Nihil record due on May 30th through Metal Blade Records. Which we have some words all about below.
Before bumping this up our queue ahead of the Worcester show (Otherwise we would’ve had the review ready for release week), we had the following jotted down regarding the Pennsylvanian outfits 5th full-length: “Heavy Metal Rush, Heavy Metal Horns, Heavy Metal Heaven”. Okay, the Rush was a gut reaction after hearing the first 2 songs… and yeah, there are some Proggy similarities overall (And their current headline is billed as “The Aggressive Progressive Tour”) and Andy Thomas’ clean lines hover around the upper range like Geddy Lee but if we were going to compare to a Prog outfit then we’d say that Rivers Of Nihil is maybe a more grounded Amiensus and, similar to that Minnesota-based band, their new self-titled effort might be an overlooked Metal album of the year contender that you should keep your eye on.
Opener “The Sub-Orbital Blues” is a BEAST with these Alice In Chains-ish vocal harmonies straight out the gate before devolving into a lumbering behemoth that, like a sonic tasting menu, offers a little bit of what’s to come with bassist Adam Biggs and guitarist Andy Thomas coming with the Jekyll/Hyde dueling vocals, Patrick Corona delivering subtle alto sax stylings, and the ferociousness of Jared Klein’s drums and Brody Uttley’s multi-instrumentalling (Not a word) filling up the room. “Dustman” is epic and really gets the groove going with Thomas’ croon out in full force on the vibrant chorus while all else shreds relentlessly around while “Criminals” gives us some distinct Mike Patton-esque vocal feels deeper within the song with Uttley’s programming accenting the twisted tilt-a-whirl of noise happening all around.
“Despair Church” is cool on the name alone but it also helps that the song is pretty kick ass as well with Klein’s rumbling drums enveloping the pulsating riffage produced from Thomas and Uttley before a particularly glowing chorus followed by the gnarly sounds of “Water & Time” that’s soaked in badass sounds and vibes to start ahead of a monolithic Metal-lic meltdown highlighted by fiery guitar solos, Thomas and Biggs’ differing howls and Corona’s smooth sax runs. Which brings up our next point: Have you ever headbanged to some saxophone? You can cross that off your bucket list after making it through Rivers Of Nihil!
Elsewhere, “House Of Light” is haunting with some more slick sax soloing, “Evidence” is monstrous with particularly vicious vocals out of Biggs and a shining chorus from Thomas, and “American Death” is brutal with Biggs and Klein’s rhythm section pummeling its’ way towards an especially anthemic chorus out of Thomas. “The Logical End” is not the logical end to this record but a penultimate piece that brings even more atmosphere to round out this record and then Rivers Of Nihil follow a long line of legends like Black Sabbath, Bad Company, The Monkees, Motorhead and more with a song name that’s the same as the band and “Rivers Of Nihil” is certainly no slacker against that list
Rivers Of Nihil releases on May 30th through Metal Blade Records and you can pre-order yours now by heading here. For more from Rivers Of Nihil, like where you can catch them live on their “The Aggressive Progressive Tour” headlining run with Holy Fawn, Inter Arma, and Glacial Tomb as support which merges with Nekrogoblikon’s own “Show Me Your Goblin” run featuring Brat, Ov Sulfur and MA’s own Revocation for a massive (Or is that “MASS”-ive?) event at Worcester’s Palladium on May 23rd (Tix for that particular one here), hop on the information superhighway and be sure to make stops here, here, or here for all the rest.