Review by Lawrence Stillman on December 26, 2023.

Rivers Of Nihil is a progressive/technical death metal band hailing from Pennsylvania, US. While their previous 2 albums had a balanced mix between tech and prog, this album marks the band's direction towards a more proggy endeavour, similar to bands like Opeth or Black Crown Initiate. This album is definitely one of the most controversial death metal records to come out in recent years. Due to how much experimentation RON did for this album, it alienated a lot of death metal purists that only think progressive death metal that goes too prog is a sellout and genre traitor. But for me, any experimentation that makes the music more enjoyable is always a good thing; otherwise, we would not get bands like Opeth if all death metal musicians thought like their audience did.

RON's inclusion of a wind instrument here is a bold gamble for the album, as the inclusion of a saxophone is unheard of outside of avant-garde acts like Sigh. But unlike most musical experimentation, this gamble ultimately paid off, as it fits into technical and progressive death metal like a glove. The saxophone can add beauty and layers to the musical harmony, but it can also be chaotic and dissonant whenever it is necessary. The interlude during 'The Silent Life' is a fine example of dissonance in action. But even if the saxophone is removed, the instruments themselves are still excellent in their own right. It is technical and tight, but not devolving into technical wankery, unlike bands similar to Necrophagist, making all the technicality fit into the music perfectly and conveying what the music wants to express.

The instruments are, unsurprisingly, really good this time around. The guitars kept the atmospheric, airy feeling that they have been known for during Monarchy, which made it a direct upgrade to mid-2010s Fallujah. The bass is crunchy and virtuosic, just like it was in the previous album. But compared to Monarchy, the drums are way more intense this time around, with double bass and blast beats everywhere. The same can be said for the crazy jazz-inspired drum fills and beats too. It's clear that the music for this album has a bigger focus on jazz fusion compared to their previous works. One thing I noticed that no one talked about was the inclusion of keyboards in some of the tracks. Similar to the approach that Regnum Caelorum Et Gehenna took, the keyboards are mostly for atmosphere and were not meant to be the leading instrument. Instead, they sit at the back of the mix, supporting the remaining instruments. The vocals are still the same as in Monarchy; Jake's harsh vocals are still as intelligible as ever, taking on the role of an apocalyptic narrator, while Adam Biggs' vocals (the black metal-esque shrieks) are pretty rare, but when it needs to make an impact, boy does he deliver.

Conceptually, this is a sequel to Monarchy's plot. After all the humans are wiped out in 'Suntold', the earth (who is sentient) gives one human the gift of immortality so it can witness the death of the planet. While the tale is ultimately pointless in principle, it does give off this feeling of inevitability and the ephemeral nature of life itself. It is a really powerful message that no matter who you are, everyone dies at the end.

The production is pretty decent, like all releases on Metal Blade Records. Every instrument has a high level of clarity, and thus nothing is buried under the amount of audible chaos and noise. MBR might be one of the most consistent labels at delivering pristine-sounding records nowadays, unlike Nuclear Blast, which aims to brickwall as many albums as it can get its filthy hands on.

This is one of those albums that reminds you why you love music and what it can achieve. It is still one of the best prog/tech albums I have heard in 2023, on par with the classic Opeth albums like "Still Life", and considering how much of a musical behemoth Opeth was back in the day, this speaks volumes to just how good this album is. Unfortunately, they tread water after this album and released The Work, which is a huge step back in quality.

Highlights: 'Subtle Change', 'Where Owls Know My Name', 'The Silent Life'

Rating: 9.8 out of 10

Review by chrisc7249 on April 19, 2022.

Rivers Of Nihil has become one of the most controversial and well known bands in technical death metal in the past few years. Things started out rather standard with their first two records, but took a wild turn with the release of the album reviewed here, their third album Where Owls Know My Name, released in 2018. This saw the band treading new waters, going headfirst into atmospheric and progressive death metal, in the vein of Black Crown Initiate on LSD. WOKMN is one of the most challenging, controversial and experimental death metal records to be released in the 21st century, and its ambitious efforts have succeeded exponentially to these ears.

Rivers Of Nihil exceed where Fallujah began to fail towards this time. Where Fallujah began to focus too much on atmosphere and began making more and more boring music after their first album, Rivers Of Nihil managed to make the atmosphere interesting by adding more layers to it. The most obvious of this, the main talking point of the album, is the use of a saxophone regularly. They helped spearhead this movement by infusing wind instruments into technical death metal, now seeing Exocrine and Fractal Universe among others head in this direction. The saxophone works well with the technical death metal, as the beauty of this instrument mixes perfectly with the chaos of the music. And when the music doubles down on the chaos, the sax will become dissonant and intense, evoking a sense of fear.

The technical death metal itself is tight as fuck, with a lot of meaty riffs, flashy solos and jazz/classic interludes. Good riffs are not a rarity on this album, as each song seems to have a plethora or chunky riffs, most notably the monstrous riff in the middle of 'Old Nothing' that makes the song worth repeating multiple times just for that one part. 'The Silent Life' and 'Death Is Real' are also good examples of songs with meaty riffing in them. The solos are just as gorgeous as anything else on this record, memorable, clean and emotional. The emotion above all is the greatest feature of this entire album, as each song is like a rollercoaster of feelings, from angry and intense to melancholy and hopeless. The lyrics help with these narratives as the story carries on into the fall theme, matching the depressiveness of the autumn season.

The instrumentation is unsurprisingly technically adequate and impressive. The guitars are masterful, as the solos are not only emotive, but complex without being just a wall of notes. The drumming is blisteringly heavy, as crazy fills are delivered at Mach 1 speed, leading me to believe that all these tech death drummers have to be sharing some underground drug that gives them the energy to be able to do this. The bass playing is also impressive, jazzy and surreal as it helps balance the guitars and drumming very well. Vocals are the weak point, as is usually the case with these records - they're, again, not bad at all, but they don't stand out either. The clean singing is nice but the regular growls might as well be copied and pasted from other bands.

Where Owls Know My Name certainly isn't for everyone - I can see people being turned off by this album quite easily. Not only is technical death metal looked at negatively by elitists, but the almost poppy, atmospheric elements and the bloody sax may seem pretentious and overdramatic. I think everything is pretty much perfect in my eyes. It's just so enchanting, and it's one of those albums that transports me to a different realm and I could just listen to it again and again without issue. I've been listening to it for 3 years and it just seems to get better every time. I've heard two of the songs from the new album that was just released, and was not impressed at all. It seems very disappointing, but I'll save that for another day when I decide to listen to the new album. Until then, this will do, and it does more than enough - this is one of the greatest progressive/technical death metal albums ever written.

FFO: Fallujah, Burial In The Sky, Black Crown Initiate

Favorite song: 'Old Nothing'

Rating: 10 out of 10

Review by Adam M on March 21, 2018.

Rivers of Nihil were a really harsh death metal band, but they’ve changed their style to adopt more progressive elements on their third full length release. The change is welcome as it sees the band using other instruments like horns in absolutely mesmerizing fashion. The music is allowed to breath and show off its intellectual side, which is a wondrous element.

This music here is interesting in that the quieter moments are some of the most notable ones and weave everything together nicely. How would one characterize Rivers of Nihil’s sound? Well, they have a core element that is hidden underneath the death metal and progressive music undertones. The music here is beautiful in that it has a variety of different moods and motifs, but always does its best to move the listener. The guitar work is excellent and covers a wide variety of feelings on the part of the listener. It can be dense or heavy or soft depending on how the band wants to play things out. Drums provide an appropriate backdrop to the music and give it a powerful impression. The vocals are infectious and provide the backdrop for the music to take shape. This album will be hard to surpass and has set a benchmark for the musical experience of 2018 thus far.

Only if a band tries something really interesting will they surpass what Rivers of Nihil have done here. There is so much texture and depth to the music that it is simply marvelous. The added innovation is a breath of fresh air when so many death metal bands stagnate in a matter of moments. This album injects new life into the genre and provides a great blueprint for future bands from the genre. Any fan of progressive death metal owes it to themselves to check out Where Owls Know My Name.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10