NILE require no introduction. For nearly 30 years now, the NILE name has stood as the definition of dark & challenging death metal, exploring Egyptian history and mythology with single-minded purpose. But back in 1996, when they released their second demo, Ramses Bringer of War, the NILE name was fresh and beginning to build in momentum within the underground – which soon landed them a contract with Relapse Records, which then resulted in their utterly classic debut album, Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka…and the rest is, literally, history. Before all that, however, NILE had their unique & idiosyncratic sound in place on Ramses Bringer of War. Evoking Egyptian bloodshed and grandeur in both message and especially medium, NILE’s death metal here was savage and strange, always moving and always monolithic, taking the increasingly “tech” developments of mid-‘90s death and subverting them to their own design, which is to say nothing of their hydra-headed vocal attack. Indeed, to travel among these three tracks is to wander among those catacombs – and be confronted with warfare, horror, and the supernatural, all at once. And while they’d re-record all three songs for Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka in a cleaner ‘n’ clearer fashion, the raw barbarism found on Ramses Bringer of War makes this recording a historical and pivotal piece of the NILE mythos.