Mithras
Forever Advancing Legions

In the manual of Brutal Death Metal, after the very useful suggestions on how to horrifically carve a roast chicken and make everyone at the Christmas dinner table vomit, there is a chapter dedicated to technical problems that includes the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and everything else; one of these questions is precisely “What happens if you want to copy Nile?”

Even though Debaser is self-proclaimed as a free site, it is impossible for me to report the answer verbatim because, as expected, it is in line with the matter at hand, that is to say, very, very Brutal; consider, therefore, this review of mine as a reworking (if not a euphemism) of what is stated in “The Perfect Brutal Death Metaller's Manual”.

The year was 2001 and these four wackos from England were very impressed by “Amongst The Catacombs Of Nephren Ka” and “Black Seeds Of Vengeance”, the first two albums by Nile, a band known to the entire Homo species (not so much) Sapiens Brutallarensis for having bastardized Death Metal with typical sounds of the land of the pharaohs. Now our guys, who at the time played in some smelly rehearsal room, must have thought that all this was really badass, so they dug up the textbook and chose a random ancient people to be the epicenter of their musical proposal; their choice landed on none other than the ancient Romans, downgraded from hegemonic force of the ancient world to a two-bit band. I believe I don't need to specify that their attempt ends poorly, terribly poorly, tragically poorly, and not because they lack the necessary technical skills: yes, because these guys can play very well and all strive to give their best; the drummer, who slows down and speeds up as he pleases, brings to life passages of notable difficulty, the guitarist, who enjoys dismantling Nile's scales and reassembling them differently to avoid legal troubles (but in doing so demonstrates his prowess with his six strings), the bassist, who is the only one who performs somewhat original and incredibly precise work, and the singer who puts his incredibly boring growling on a silver platter to make the songs aggressive and evocative (you can imagine the result).

In short, in terms of skill the criticisms to advance are very few, but on the compositional level Mithras are worth zero, actually, less than zero because they copy and copy shamelessly; don't come to me talking about nonchalant because these guys don't know what that is and they get caught red-handed. Do you remember those instrumental pieces by Nile played with characteristic Egyptian instruments and perhaps with some chorus in the background? Well, you will find them perfectly replicated in “Forever Advancing Legions” with the only difference being that they are performed with keyboards, just to take away any pretense of ethnic contamination, and nowhere do you understand where on earth they got them from since no Latin scores have ever been found. And if you are still wavering, listen to “Arena Sands”; when you reach the point where you hear the crowd urging on the gladiators and the keyboards clambering over glass to stretch the song, I think you'll feel like feeding Mithras to the beasts in full. However, if it were only this aspect copied from Nile, I could still be content with putting a note in their diary, but that's not enough: the riffing, solos, drum parts, and everything else are blatantly counterfeited, like those bags you find at the market that look branded but aren’t, and the buckle falls off. You won’t find a single chord that comes from these four little heads, not a single roll, nothing at all. And yes, I repeat, with the musical knowledge they have and demonstrate, it wouldn't be that difficult for them to come up with something good.

Whether it’s blind love for this type of sound or a lack of willingness to put in the work, it matters little, the Mithras are a bitter disappointment and haven’t understood that playing this music with only Nile as a benchmark is like attaching yourself to a sports car with a bicycle. Two cases apply; if you love Nile and consider them untouchable and/or if you want to keep away from the Lexotan bottle to calm unpredictable hysterical attacks, avoid “Forever Advancing Legions”. Instead, if you love Nile but want to play dumb, feel free to buy this album and, armed with a permanent marker, write “Nile” over “Mithras” so every time you listen to it you can pretend it is a rare find by the above-mentioned band (which it is not), indulge yourself in a supposedly hard-to-find album of theirs (which it is not) and have yet another (not theirs) proof of how original (not) Nile are.

I hope my solutions satisfy both obsessive neurotics and psychotics and thus contain the damage caused by “Forever Advancing Legions”; in the meantime, I will develop new methods to neutralize “Worlds Beyond The Veil”, their new album.