Rivers of Nihil - Monarchy

Rivers of Nihil - Monarchy

2015 / Technical death metal

Rivers of Nihil are a technical death metal band from Pennsylvania, USA, and "Monarchy" is their second album. Technical death metal as a genre is almost never an accurate description of the band's output, since almost all of them have different influences and executions of the mentioned influences. If I had to describe Rivers of Nihil briefly, I would say they play non-wankery tech death with occasional chug riffs. 

When checking out an album, its artwork is probably the first thing you notice. If the album's artwork is intriguing or abnormal, it's quite possible I'll check the album out. "Monarchy's" artwork was the main reason I got interested in it, and I have no regrets. While the album didn't charm me completely on the fist spin, it got my interest aroused so that I'll have to listen through it again to find all the wonderful little details. One of the details I noticed now, was the sweet bass tone which was audible through the whole album. 

"Monarchy's" atmosphere was something completely different than what I've used to hear in tech death. The closest attempt to describe the atmosphere is Enslaved's progressive era sound combined with a rather modern prog sound. The overall sound of "Monarchy" is quite pleasant variation to the usual modern tech death sound, which is usually either Necrophagist's tone or The Faceless' tone these days. 

Technical death metal albums never open up enough when you listen to them the first time, so I'm unable to name any particular highlights. Recommended to anyone into technical death metal.