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Nile seem to have climbed out of the rut they fell into with At the Gate of Sethu. That album was barely passable, but in 2015 we got What Should Not Be Unearthed, which was much better. Now, after a 4-year wait, we get this venerable band's 9th album, and it really feels like they are back in shape.

One of the best things about this disc is that the production is so much better than the last few albums. Rather than feeling mushy and flat, the recording here has a lot of space and separation to the sounds, so everything has more depth and personality. Karl Sanders is still a composer of dense, heavy, intricate riffs, and I can tell that for a while he's been on a quest to find a recording style that allows you to hear what is going on, and this time I think he nailed it. This is not as heavy as the band used to be, but the complexity and energy level do a lot to make up for that.

New guitar player Brian Kingsland seems to have taken over as the primary vocalist, and he takes some getting used to, as he has a higher-pitched voice than Sanders' more guttural stylings, but he has a lot more texture to his vocals than Dallas ever managed, so overall I think he is an asset to the band.

Vile Nilotic Rites is a definite high point of Nile's later period, featuring a cleaner, more agile sound that still pummels and hammers through Sanders' occult landscape of myth and horror. The new members seem to have given the band a shot in the arm and the whole thing feels more energetic and creative than the band has sounded since Annihilation of the Wicked. Death Metal fans should not miss it.