Rivers of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name

An early-career progressive metal masterpiece for the Pennsylvanian five-piece, Where Owls Know My Name is the album that’s been devouring my time since its release. At just under an hour, it’s still a sprawling release, made such by way of its tremendous sonic diversity from track to track. This album somehow feels longer than it really is in a good way. The consistently proggy scope of styles and grand ambitions all over the album actually help to make its experience a fun and captivating one rather than a chore like some progressive metal certainly can feel like it imposes.

Full of tight performances, the tasteful technicality of the guitar work, the hyperspeeds of the drumming, and the very Johan Hegg-sounding growled vocals are all wrapped into full, well-thought-out sections and songs. Rather than haphazardly throwing all this fast instrumentation and proggy quirkiness at the wall in order to qualify as “prog” and “technical”, Rivers of Nihil prove themselves quite competent song-writers capable of wielding the immense instrumental power they bring forth on this album. And they do so not by watering down the extreme elements of their music or simply plugging in to the verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure; the songs are actually intentional while making themselves interesting, but never losing sight of the band’s mission to shoot for the grandiose and actually reach it.

The thematic opener, “Cancer / Moonspeak” actually makes for a solid, quickly emotionally moving introduction/overture for the album (I say “actually” because so many short album intros are often completely unnecessary), and it segues nicely into the broad-picture progressive death metal of “The Silent Life”, a song that saturates with double-bass and palm muted riffs early to make way for the breather of a smooth saxophone passage, which eventually becomes enveloped in the wake of the return of the pummeling drums and searing guitars. It’s one of the best progressive metal tracks I’ve heard in a long time.

The second fully fledged song, “A Home”, begins in similarly furious fashion, blasting through lightning-paced drum fills and double bass sections into the strata of more clean-guitar-driven passages. It’s probably one of the weaker tracks on the album; but considering how a song as interesting and vibrant as “A Home” still indeed is can be a weak link, it just speaks to how top-notch the whole album is.

“Old Nothing” kicks off with the most enthralling, unrelenting double-bass blast beat-backed apocalyptic guitar riff I have heard in a good long while, and it doesn’t just open the song with its madness, it sustains it to the very end. And what a stunning track it is too; it feels like the Earth is splitting apart before me and expelling megatons of high velocity debris all around me and all I can do is stand in awe of it. And, of course, as a total Meshuggah fanboy, I very much enjoy the well-executed Thordendal-esque mini-solo in the latter half of the track as well.

The lengthily named fifth track, “Subtle Change (Including the Forest of Transition and Dissatisfaction Dance)”, introduces a more moderated/traditional and less exclusively deathly approach to the band’s progressive metal mission, but it is not without its heart-racing middle section full of growls and extreme percussive speed. But the saxophone is allowed another moment to shine afterwards, and not simply as a novelty item. Amongst the dancing keyboards and blinding guitar pull-offs, the sax blends in and adds to the song’s progression quite well.

The relatively quick instrumental “Terrestria III: Wither” bursts from the tension of its acoustic intro into a variety of distorted midtempo beats that, while ultimately driving only linearly, serve as an excellent interlude before the second half of the record.

Seventh track, “Hollow”, sounds like something Amon Amarth might have been able to come up with; a more direct, yet still insanely technical death metal tune, Jake Dieffenbach’s low-growls bring exceptional fury to the already tornado-ing instrumental behind him.

“Death Is Real” enters with a few key changes that lead the song into its fiery techdeath nihilism, whose eight-string assault eventually gives way to a bass guitar heavy section that maintains the song’s groove before its absolutely explosive guitar solo tears through the already thick instrumentation to pierce the soul.

The title track introduces a somewhat Serj/Daron somber clean vocal harmony before its ethereal guitar/sax dueling. The journey from calm to storm and back again through this track is a particularly smooth and masterful one.

The finale, “Capricorn / Agoratopia”, brings the album to a satisfying, entropic conclusion of wailing guitars, soaring gruff vocals, merciless drumming, and progressive metal glory.

Feeling like a complete, cohesive experience, Where Owls Know My Name is in many ways using familiar methods to achieve its goals, but in other ways it is a bold and ultimately successful charting of less-traversed territory for techdeath and progressive metal. While it’s unlikely to be winning any newcomers to the subgenre, it will certainly be revitalizing the excitement within, providing a much-needed stimulus to those growing numb to technical death metal’s overused tactics.

Among all the aimless technical instrumental masturbation that populates the technical death metal subgenre, Where Owls Know My Name is a fantastically well-orchestrated breath of fresh air, and Rivers of Nihil can most definitely be proud of what they’re put forth here. Adventurous, proggy, mind-bogglingly visceral, even emotive, this album is at the top of my list for this year right now and it will be a tough one for the rest of 2018’s releases to outdo.