RIVERS OF NIHIL: “CRIMINALS”

(We present DGR‘s review of a new EP by Pennsylvania-based Rivers of Nihil, which is out now on Metal Blade Records.)

Strangely enough, writing about Rivers Of Nihil‘s newest EP Criminals feels like a little bit of a ‘gimme’. The three songs on Criminals – none of which is a cover of the titular Katatonia song – were all ostensibly recorded during the same experimental session for the band, one which saw the newly restructured lineup of the group getting together to see just what they could do and where they might be headed post-The Work.

They were then slowly drip-fed to listeners over the course of a little under a year, so listeners will have an immediate familiarity with prog-rock minded “The Sub-Orbital Blues” and the slightly more recent stomper in “Hellbirds”, which means the big draw for most people will be the unveiling of “Criminals” as a song, as well as the ability to take in all three in one go, providing an intriguing glimpse at Rivers Of Nihil‘s current headspace and lyrical inspirations, as well as peek through a smudged lense of where their future paths may take them.

Photo by Mike Truehart

“Sub-Orbital Blues” was an interesting choice of lead-off single but also one which makes clear that even though the group’s lineup had changed to a more compact form, there was still both a ton of talent and adventurism within the group. It also made clear pretty early on that even though guitarist/vocalist Andy Thomas had a handful of appearances on their records throughout the years – Black Crown Initiate and Rivers Of Nihil being intertwined by virtue of traveling similar sonic paths and being from the same area – they had recruited an absolute weapon in Thomas and they were going to use him everywhere they could.

Matter of fact, basically everyone is going to be tackling the vocal front at one point or another now. So, strangely, even though “Sub-Orbital Blues” is a spacey prog-death number of a song it is just as much a vocalist demonstration for Rivers Of Nihil, opening up multiple audio-texture spaces for them just on the screaming and singing front alone. They could easily stretch things as far as Mastodon started to do on their Blood Mountain/Crack The Skye run wherein everyone on the band would wind up taking vocal command at one point or another. “Sub-Orbital Blues” plays that closer to the chest by keeping the Rivers Of Nihil crew mostly in sync by comparison and creating a screamed choir instead.

Pound-for-pound and even in the face of the newly released “Criminals“, the song “Hellbirds” still remains the champ for stomping faces in. The two are fairly similar in scope but “Hellbirds” was written to be increasingly nihilistic so there’s just a little bit more force to it than “Criminals” gains from it’s mosh-anthem tendencies.

There’s a lot to be said for a strong opening line as well, which “Hellbirds” has multiple times throughout – even with increasing awkwardness towards its second verse – and does provide a glimpse at Rivers Of Nihil‘s writing modes at the moment, as well as lending credence to when the band said most of “Hellbirds” was penned during their writing for The Work but they couldn’t quite figure out how to make it fit. “Hellbirds” is the middle-rager of this EP though, built around a big-swaggering groove and one of the more unlikeable protagonists in heavy metal.

With the three songs on Criminals it seems like Rivers Of Nihil were into the idea of having a main protagonist within each song, exploring a concept or situation and the viewpoints from which that character would react. There’s three separate ideas happening within Criminals whereas their full albums – which started to be made really clear around Monarchy – were mostly singular in their characters, taking them on one big journey that was often entirely existential and occasionally physical. The strongest synthesis of this ocurred around Where Owls Know My Name and it seems that Rivers Of Nihil are kind of holding an unintentional casting session for their next character to portray on their newest EP.

“Criminals” is a mean song as well. Rivers Of Nihil speak of ratcheting up the intensity on it and they really do, yet they’re still in the same baseball park (or parking lot) as their previously released song. Mentioned above, it’s a bit more of a straightofrward crusher in comparison to the earlier two singles – readily apparent by its opening blastbeat section and worm-crawling bass guitar. The opening two-thirds of the song circles around passages similar to that opening segment and a brutally-efficient clean-sung section. Though interestingly it’s the drumming that gets both a workout and does a decent bit of the heavy lifting within “Criminals”. There’s no single flare for straightforward heaviness stronger than letting the drums kick the absolute hell out of everything, and for the most part – and an especially clean solo/fill closer to the end of the song – the drum kit gets to do exactly that.

“Criminals” being another crusher and with similar run-time to “Hellbirds” – all three of the songs here ballpark at about four minutes and twenty some odd seconds – means the opening two tracks of this EP play out like opposite sides of the same coin. They’re similar in approach, showing that Rivers Of Nihil can still leave an impact crater in the ground and also staring more into the eye of less loftier lyrical inspiration and leveling things back down through the stratosphere. Less high-minded activity, a whole lot more speaking of the individual from a day-to-day understanding.

Forgiving the backwards tour through Criminals, you can see how even though the glass may be opaque, you’d have some idea of where Rivers Of Nihil‘s ambitions are at the moment. They’ve mentioned before that they don’t like resting on their laurels but the band do have a pretty clear musical core that they often orbit around. Criminals is a three-song collective of them doing just that; granted, running backwards in order of release, but you probably want the newest one up-front-and-center for those of us nerdy enough to have kept up with them in the meantime.

This newly rebuilt version of the band is still plenty capable of delivering prog-death works that remain interesting throughout, even in a compacted single format traveling in three different musical directions. Rivers Of Nihil could choose any of these to expand upon for a full-length with the current incarnation of the band. They could also dart in an entirely different direction, though it’d be hard to imagine the DNA from the Criminals sessions not finding its way into their overall song font in the future.

These are three impressive songs on their own right now and also somewhat of a soothing guarantee that the band will continue to impress in whatever form they take next.

https://riversofnihil.bandcamp.com/album/criminals
http://www.metalblade.com/riversofnihil
https://www.facebook.com/riversofnihil