I might be going out on a limb here, but I think it’s safe to say that Nile is EASILY the greatest technical death metal band to EVER come out of South Carolina with a pervasive Egyptian mythology gimmick. From the brunt force of the opening track “Unmarked Graves” to the rip-roaring two and a half minute closer “Pandemic,” Discordia is just a balls-to-the-wall, no-gimmicks needed Maryland-core metal mini-masterpiece that doesn’t even bother seeking out its own niche genre classification it’s just great, George W.-era death metal with no intentions of being anything deeper or more nuanced, and I just goddamn love it. The one two punch from vocalists Jason Netherton and Mark Kloeppel is unabashed sonic fury, with nary an attempt to harmonize whatsoever, while the drum work of Adam Jarvis is a feat of death metal minimalism excellence. While a lot of bands might try to impress you with their virtuosity or attempt to make their sound more refined and sophisticated, Baltimore’s Misery Index just comes out swinging on this album, and for all 33 minutes of its duration it’s like having cinder blocks dropped on your skull from a high-rise.
What I dig about this album is that it’s just good, old-fashioned, no frills, super-cynical, East Coast death metal nihilism, through and through. Sure, a lot of people prefer their previous albums Resurrection Through Carnage and Nightmares Made Flesh, which, being the unabashed contrarian I am, is probably why I tend to gravitate towards this one … and if absolutely nothing else, it’s certainly WORLDS better than the two post-Akerfeldt albums released afterwards. Even better, for the track “Iesous,” they even got the dude from Scar Symmetry to step into the studio, in turn giving us one of the most blistering all-star metal mash-ups of the 21st century - yep, all three minutes and thirty-four seconds of it. The tracks on The Fathomless Mastery are a lot faster and more aggressive than either of the bands’ “regular” work, which definitely gives it appeal to the more hardcore genre loyalists out there. You know how, back in the early ‘90s, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam merged together for one album and they called the whole shindig Temple of the Dog? Well, Bloodbath is pretty much the Swedish melodic death metal equivalent, featuring a mishmash of genre heavies Opeth and Katatonia.
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