History Music / Nile

* StartMyOwn: Karl, George, and Dallas all have side projects; the first two have solo projects (Karl has a Middle Eastern folk/ambient project, while George has a death metal project), while Dallas has Narcotic Wasteland, which is a full band. Subverted with Lecherous Nocturne; while Dallas was indeed in the band at one point, he was not a founding member and in fact joined seven years after they had formed. The misconception that they are a side project is likely due to their close ties and the frequency with which former Nile personnel end up joining.

* Karl Sanders: vocals, guitar

* Dallas Toler-Wade: vocals, guitar, bass (1997-2017)

* VocalTagTeam: Dallas Toler-Wade was their main vocalist during his tenure, but both Karl Sanders and Jon Vesano/[[NobodyLovesTheBassist (insert post-Vesano bass player here)]] would chip in significant lead vocals. Since Toler-Wade's departure, the band has shown signs of playing this trope straighter, splitting vocal parts more evenly between the non-drumming band members.

** "Cast Down the Heretic" is this as well, basically depicting the Amen-Ra priesthood executing Akhenaten in the [[{{Gorn}} gorniest way possible]] and then obliterating all evidence of his rule and religion.

* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: Every bassist they've had since Jon Vesano has fallen victim to this to some degree. Chris Lollis, Todd Ellis, and Brad Parris have at least technically been full-time members despite having never appeared in promo photos (save for Parris, who has) or recorded anything (despite the fact that Lollis was around for two separate recording processes), but Steve Tucker, Christian Lofgren, and Joe Payne were all strictly live session players. Granted, the former two were both only around for a tour or two each, but the latter was in the band from 2005 until at least the beginning of the ''Ithyphallic'' recording process in February of 2007, when he was fired for undisclosed reasons.

* NobodyLovesTheBassist: Jon Vesano was an integral part of the band. Ever since he left, they've been through a fairly large amount of bassists, most of them hired guns for live sessions, with only Christian Lofgren, Chris Lollis and Joe Payne having received any sort of recognition due to their work in Lecherous Nocturne (as well as [[IAmTheBand being the driving force of the band]] in the case of the former) and Divine Heresy, respectively (and the drug trafficking arrest of the latter in 2012, where he was caught with $26,000 worth of marijuana, as well as three handguns and $5,000 in cash). It's especially egregious when you consider that Lollis was around for the recording of ''Those Whom the Gods Detest'' and ''At the Gates of Sethu'', but didn't lay down any tracks; like all post-Vesano albums, Karl and Dallas just did the bass tracking themselves. This may be changing with Dallas' departure, however, as Brad Parris has moved to the center of the stage and has been doing a decent amount of his vocal parts live.

* RevolvingDoorBand: For a while, as Karl and Dallas went through myriad drummers and bassists before finally settling on Kollias for the former, though this trope is still very much in effect for the latter (though their status as full-time members has been questionable ever since Jon Vesano left; Payne was explicitly a live session player, while Lollis, Ellis, and Parris have all been listed as full-time despite being absent from recordings and inconsistently appearing in promo photos).

* MetalScream: Type 1 for Dallas, Type 2 for Karl.

* NobodyLovesTheBassist: Jon Vesano was an integral part of the band. Ever since he left, they've been through a fairly large amount of bassists, most of them hired guns for live sessions, with only Christian Lofgren, Chris Lollis and Joe Payne having received any sort of recognition due to their work in Lecherous Nocturne (as well as [[IAmTheBand being the driving force of the band]] in the case of the former) and Divine Heresy, respectively (and the drug trafficking arrest of the latter in 2012, where he was caught with $26,000 worth of marijuana, as well as three handguns and $5,000 in cash). It's especially egregious when you consider that Lollis was around for the recording of ''Those Whom the Gods Detest'' and ''At the Gates of Sethu'', but didn't lay down any tracks; like all post-Vesano albums, Karl and Dallas just did the bass tracking themselves.

* Dallas Toler-Wade: vocals, guitar, bass (studio recordings 2002-2009)

* [[OminousLatinChanting Ominous Egyptian Chanting]]: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHcVayyvVb8 "Khetti... Satha... Shemsu..."]]

'''Nile''' is a TechnicalDeathMetal band from South Carolina, USA, founded in 1993. They have a Egyptian theme (hence the name), and many of their lyrics deal with Ancient Egyptian history and mythology. They also use themes of [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraftian]] horror.

* TheCameo: [[{{Music/Immolation}} Ross Dolan]] laid down some vocals for "Khetti Satha Shemsu", although it can be pretty hard to hear given [[VoiceOfTheLegion the nature of the track's vocals]]. Ross (along with Bob Vigna) also helped inspire the extensive liner notes that Karl included on most albums beginning with ''Black Seeds of Vengeance'' (which closes with "Khetti").

* ''In The Beginning'' (2000, compilation of the ''Festivals'' and ''Ramses'' [=EPs=])

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Sanders' vocals on the earliest material sound more like the vocals of James Hetfield on '80s Music/{{Metallica}} records than the death growl we're used to. One could make a convincing argument that ''Worship the Animal'' is a ThrashMetal record. It's also not as heavy as their later stuff, but it's still plenty technical.

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: While most of their songs hover around 10, some of their more overtly Middle Eastern songs can get quite low on the scale.

* {{Instrumentals}: They usually have a few of these per album. Most often they are significantly lighter than the surrounding fare and have an Egyptian flavour, but sometimes they do metal instrumentals as well (the closing movement of "In Their Darkened Shrines", "Ruins", is an example of a DoomMetal-flavoured instrumental by the band).

* ImAHumanitarian : The narrator of "The Black Hand of Set"

* AGodAmI: Invoked in The Supreme Humanism Of Megalomania.

--> The Dominion of Seker\\
Barren Desert of Eternal Night

* BeneathTheEarth: "Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten" features lyrics about this.

* BilingualBonus: Discussed in the liner notes for "Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten". Karl notes that the English (Nameless Cults) and German (Unaussprechlichen Kulten) translations of the book's title, as conceived respectively by Creator/RobertEHoward and Creator/AugustDerleth, members of Creator/HPLovecraft's circle of collaborators, don't precisely match with each other. He lists the literal translation of "Unaussprechlichen Kulten" as being "Unpronounceable Cults", appropriate for a (fictional) book that concerns itself with the followers of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s whose names were beyond humanity's ability to correctly pronounce. (other sources note "Unnameable" and "Unspeakable" as other viable translations for Unaussprechliche(n), all of these again being appropriate given the subject matter). He also notes that the name "Unaussprechlichen Kulten" is actually grammatically incorrect in German, and even notes a debate he had with himself over whether to stick to this incorrect name or add the German word "Von" (Of) to the front of the name, which would make it correct. (clearly, he went with the correct version)

* EpicRocking : Songs like ''Unas Slayer of the Gods'', ''Annihilation of the Wicked'', and ''Even the Gods Must Die'', which is quite unheard of in death metal.

* FireAndBrimstoneHell : This is how some parts of the afterlife were seen by the Egyptians, the song "The Burning Pits of the Duat" being a nice expression of it.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: The song ''Kafir'' has a rather amusingly blasphemous play on the Muslim prayer:

** The song Masturbating The War God takes the two words that form this trope and mix them to their logical conclusion, featuring captive women of conquest being impaled upon the "massive stone member" of the aforementioned God statue, along with some other details that won't be repeated here.
*** ''Masturbating The War God'' gives Cannibal Corpse a run for its money in the gorn department. And unlike CC, who writes this kind of stuff for [[RefugeInAudacity camp value]], the source material of this song is [[{{Squick}} dead serious]]. ([[CaptainObvious the band themselves isn't though]])
** The song "Ithyphallic" also has highly gorn lyrics, specifically "anoint my phallus with the blood of the fallen"
*** Ithyphallic even means to have the penis erect.
** The song "Cast Down The Heretic" feature some pretty nasty lyrics as well, involving smashing of vertebrae, vomit, dismemberment, and the immolation of internal organs.

** ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Eat Of The Dead]]''

* LoudnessWar: Most noticeable on ''Those Whom the Gods Detest'' and it's VERY loud drum parts, which were mastered by War criminal [[Music/HateEternal Erik Rutan]]. Also listen to just about any acoustic section from ''Darkened Shrines'' onward - they tend to be brickwalled to about the same volume as ''the actual death metal parts''.

-->His Servants,
-->Hideous Reptiles of Terrifying Aspect.
-->Whose Work is Nothing Less than the Annihilation of the Wicked.
-->On Their Blocks,
-->They Cut into Pieces the Flesh of the Dead,
-->Singing Hymns of Torture and Mutilation to Their Master.
-->Accompanied by the Wailings and Anguish of the Damned.

** Averted on the band's two early [=EPs=] and the first full length release, ''Amongst The Catacombs of Nephren-Ka'', when the original line-up of Sanders, Chief Spires on bass and Pete Hammoura on drums was fully intact (and Dallas wasn't even a member until ''after'' Catacombs was recorded). It was a career-ending injury to Hammoura while recording ''Black Seeds of Vengeance'' that set the revolving door in motion, with Spires leaving just after due to personal and creative differences stemming from Hammoura's injury.

* ShoutOut : The Creator/HPLovecraft circle receives homage from this band in many of their songs, Karl Sanders himself shows his interest by talking about the references of the Myths in Nile's albums.
* ShownTheirWork : Karl Sanders' knowledge of mythology and history is so extensive that he has had to clarify on numerous occasions that he is not an actual Egyptologist, and that if people wish to find out more about the subject matters of the songs he writes, while he is happy to answer in some cases, [[CrowningMomentOfheartwarming one would be best served by a few trips to a well stocked library.]]

* TimeAbyss : Some of the creatures referred in the songs (eg: SSS Haa Set Yoth) seems to have been alive (or whatever equivalent it is in their nature) since even before man appeared on Earth:
-->Lurking Among Us Hidden in Obscurity, Descended from the Dawn of the Ages...

** "Cast Down The Heretic" is this as well, basically depicting the Amen-Ra priesthood executing Akhenaten in the [[{{Gorn}} gorniest way possible]] and then obliterating all evidence of his rule and religion.

* AudienceParticipationSong: A lot of their songs, most prominently "Black Seeds of Vengeance," and "4th Arra of Dagon," where, during the outro chants of the songs, the band will often step away from the microphones and chant along with the crowd.

* FireAndBrimstoneHell : This is how some parts of the afterlife where seen by the Egyptians, the song "The Burning Pits of the Duat" being a nice expression of it.

* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: Every bassist they've had since Jon Vesano has fallen victim to this to some degree. Chris Lollis, Todd Ellis, and Brad Parris have at least technically been full-time members despite having never appeared in promo photos or recorded anything (despite the fact that Lollis was around for two separate recording processes), but Steve Tucker, Christian Lofgren, and Joe Payne were all strictly live session players. Granted, the former two were both only around for a tour or two each, but the latter was in the band from 2005 until at least the beginning of the ''Ithyphallic'' recording process in February of 2007, when he was fired for undisclosed reasons.

* RevolvingDoorBand: For a while, as Karl and Dallas went through myriad drummers and bassists before finally settling on Kollias for the former, though this trope is still very much in effect for the latter.

* XMeetsY: Music/{{Suffocation}} meets Egyptian music.

* SopranoAndGravel: Sort of. Karl is known for his exceptionally low growl, while Dallas is known for his higher, raspier howls. ''The Fiends Who Come to Steal the Magick of the Deceased'' plays this straight, however, thanks to Mike Breazeale's guest vocals.

*** The worst offender, so far, is the track 6 of ''[=AotW=]''. Are you ready? Here goes: "Chapter of Obeisance Before Giving Breath to the Inert One in the Presence of the Crescent Shaped Horns".

** In ''Annihilation of the Wicked'', there's "Dusk Falls Upon the Temple of the Serpent on the Mount of Sunrise".