History Music / Nile

** 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.

* LongTitle: Let's see...
** ''Black Seeds of Vengeance'' has "Invocation of the Gate of Aat-Ankh-es-en-Amenti" and "Libation Unto the Shades Who Lurk in the Shadows of the Temple of Anhur".
** In ''Annihilation of the Wicked'', there's "Dusk Falls Upon the Temple of the Serpent on the Mount of Sunrise" and "Chapter of Obeisance Before Giving Breath to the Inert One in the Presence of the Crescent Shaped Horns".
** ''Ithyphallic'' brings us "Papyrus Containing the Spell to Preserve Its Possessor Against Attacks From He Who Is in the Water".
** And in ''Those Whom the Gods Detest'', there's "Permitting the Noble Dead to Descend to the Underworld", followed by "Yezd Desert Ghul Ritual in the Abandoned Towers of Silence".
** And ''At the Gate of Sethu'' is no slouch either, including "The Fiends Who Come to Steal the Magick of the Deceased", "The Gods Who Light Up the Sky at the Gate of Sethu", and "Natural Liberation of Fear Through the Ritual Deception of Death". If anything, Nile is ''very'' explanatory in their song titles.
** Oddly enough, this is thoroughly averted by their Epic Rockers - their titles are all five words or less. In fact, the band's first two epics, off the ''Festivals of Atonement'' EP, both had one word titles - "Wrought" and "Extinct". Meanwhile, "Invocation of the Gate..." and "Dusk Fall Upon the Temple..." are both acoustic/ambient intro tracks to their respective albums, and come out under one minute apiece, and many of the other straight examples are three minutes or less.

* AddledAddict: Chris Lollis' issues with pills got him fired from both Nile and Lecherous Nocturne and have left his life in shambles.

* Scott Eames - guitars (2022-present)

* Brad Parris: bass, vocals (2015-present)

* NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly: Invoked in the instrumental "Ethno-Musicological Cannibalisms"; Karl says in the liner notes that he intentionally combined different instruments and styles that weren't "supposed" to go together.

* BaldOfAwesome: Dallas since 2009.

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: While most of their songs hover around 10, some of their more overtly Middle Eastern songs can get quite low on the scale. ''Worship the Animal'' is probably also mostly in the 8-9 range.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: The song "Kafir" has an atheistic play on the Muslim prayer:
--> "There is no god but God! There is no god but God!"
--> '''"THERE IS NO GOD''' but the one true God! '''''THERE IS NO GOD''''' but the hidden God!"
** And in case the above lines weren't clear enough, next up is
--> '''THERE IS NO GOD! THERE IS NO GOD! THERE IS''' '''''NO''''' '''GOD!''' '''''THERE IS NO GOD!!'''''

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: Their early EP title ''Festivals of Atonement'' comes from Creator/FriedrichNietzsche's ''The Gay Science''. The full passage (which is commonly {{Quote Mine}}d to suggest something much different from Nietzsche's intended meaning) is:
---> "GodIsDead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What '''festivals of atonement''', what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"

* GodzillaThreshold: "Evil to Cast Out Evil"

* HumansAreBastards: All over the place in ''Vile Nilotic Rights''. In the second to last song, humanity becomes so evil that Ra wipes them all out via ''[[NoKillLikeOverkill supernova]]''.

* HorribleHistoryMetal: When they aren't singing about Lovecraft's writing or Eqyptian Mythology their singing about this.

* Karl Sanders: guitars, vocals
* George Kollias: drums
* Brad Parris: bass, vocals
* Brian Kingsland: guitars, vocals

* StartMyOwn: Karl, Dallas, and George 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 and Brad has Olkoth, which are full bands. 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. Also subverted with Enthean, as they were Brian Kingsland's main band well before he joined Nile.

* UsefulNotes/{{Atheism}} and UsefulNotes/{{Anarchism}}: The song "Godless" (found on ''Festivals of Atonement'') explicitly advocates the former and can also be read as advocating the latter ("Άθεος ανάρχας" translates as "atheist anarchy", and the song also includes the lyrics "No law of man or god / No chains of servitude / Bind me to the unjust").

* HairTriggerTemper: Karl Sanders is known being quite the hothead.

* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: Every bassist they have 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. This was apparently mostly due to Dallas, who didn't trust the abilities of most of their bassists and came up with the idea to have them sit out the recording sessions; with him out of the picture, Brad Parris has been making writing contributions and will be tracking his own parts on their upcoming full-length.

* 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 has changed with Dallas' departure, however, as Parris has moved to the center of the stage and does a substantial amount of the vocal parts, and he is also participating in the writing process and will be tracking his own parts on their upcoming full-length.
* NoKillLikeOverkill: The Heretic's fate in "Cast Down the Heretic".

* 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 and Ellis were both listed as full-time despite being absent from recordings and inconsistently appearing in promo photos). Brad Parris, however, is a full member, as he is participating in the writing process and will be tracking his own parts on the upcoming full-length.

** Jon Vesano has shown up as a guest vocalist on most albums subsequent to his departure from full-time status.

*** "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 aren't, though]].)

* CameBackWrong: "The Essential Salts" describes how to turn a dead body into the eponymous salts and bring the dead person back to life. Unfortunately the salts sometimes get contaminated, resulting in "something that is part man and part whatever gnawed his corpse".

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: The song "Kafir" has a rather amusingly blasphemous play on the Muslim prayer:

* HorribleHistoryMetal: Almost exclusively.

* [[OminousLatinChanting Ominous Egyptian Chanting]]: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V56n95wW0I "Khetti... Satha... Shemsu..."]]

* 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.]]

* BigFun: Karl.

* StartMyOwn: Karl, Dallas, and George 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. Also subverted with Enthean, as they were Brian Kingsland's main band well before he joined Nile.

* MetalScream: Type 1 for Dallas, Type 2 for Karl. Brad Parris is also a Type 1, while Brian Kingsland is both a Type 1 and a Type 2 depending on whether he's doing a part from Vesano or Dallas.

* 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. Also subverted with Enthean, as they were Brian Kingsland's main band well before he joined Nile.

* UncommonTime: Since they're a TechnicalDeathMetal band, this was pretty much inevitable. They've been using it since their first demo.
* 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 plays this straighter; Karl still does all of his parts, while Kingsland and Parris split duties roughly 60/40.

** Karl: sanguine

** Brad: choleric

* 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. This was apparently mostly due to Dallas, who didn't trust the abilities of most of their bassists and came up with the idea to have them sit out the recording sessions; with him out of the picture, Brad Parris has been making writing contributions and will be tracking his own parts on their upcoming full-length.