Review by Lawrence Stillman on December 26, 2023.

After a shaky debut, Rivers Of Nihil released their sophomore album in 2015. This album marks a more refined direction of the band's instrumentation and songwriting, be it in technicality, progressive elements, or atmospheric sounding. Gone are the deathcore elements on their prior releases, and now it is just pure technical and progressive death metal, comparable to genre staple albums like "Cosmogenesis" and "Earthborn Evolution".

This album is different from most technical death metal I've listen to, unlike albums like "Omnivium" or "The Aura", this one exudes a very powerful and consistent atmosphere that feels like you are lying on your back in the driest, dustiest desert imaginable, being cooked alive by the scorching sun coming down, exactly as the cover advertises. This is accomplished by the occasional calm and acoustic section that lets the listener take a breather and take in everything that has occurred prior to said calm section. This atmosphere is also conveyed in the lyrics, being a concept album and all, alluding to a decaying earth where the sun has dried everything, only a small fraction of humanity has managed to avoid extinction, and have become a sun-worshiping theocracy that gradually collapses into a dictatorship/monarchy.

The album begins with an intro track, as if the soundscape is showcasing us what happened between the end of Conscious Seed... and the start of Monarchy, before blasting into the second track that begins with Jake narrating/growling the desolation in words. The first half of the album is your standard technical death metal songs, full of intricacies and impressive musicianship, but when the title track begins, it marks a significant shift where progressive elements become more prominent, and the arrangements really open up. The songs get longer, the guitars now have these atmospheric tremolo picks that blend into the background, which give them an ethereal atmosphere that eerily sounds like keyboards from a DSBM release, and the songs now take on more diverse structures to separate themselves from the first half of the album.

The instruments here are also pretty interesting, throughout the album there are multiple, competing rhythms happening most of the time, but it never sounds haphazard, and more of a choreography made out of noise, it is not supposed to work, but it does. One technique I like here is during some choruses where one of the guitars (or both guitars depending on the song) fade into the background and provide an atmospheric backdrop, while the bass, drums, and vocals form the bulk of the audio, an example occurs during Circles in the Sky. The vocals here are pretty unusual for technical death metal too, instead of being a low growl or a high register that sounds like a goblin (although the bassist, Andy Biggs does growl in a high register to complement the lead vocalist), Jake Dieffenbach opted for a mid-ranged roar that sounds surprisingly intelligible, I can understand most of the lyrics on the first listen, more of a narrator to a dystopia or post-apocalyptic fiction and less of a death growling demon. The drums here are pretty impressive too, but that just comes with being in a technical death metal band. But the bass here... It deserves a special mention, besides doing bass solos occasionally, Andy Biggs also runs his basslines in parallel of the rest of the band, creating a rhythmic backdrop that further reinforces their sound, and sometimes even carrying the song forward with the vocals when the guitars decide to take a backseat and provide an atmospheric backdrop.

Songwriting wise, this album combines both technical and progressive death metal songwriting to create something unique and atmospheric. While the first half of the album is more technical death metal oriented where its a 80/20 split between tech and prog, the second half of the album (title track onwards) manages to balance both technical and progressive songwriting equally without one overpowering the other, allowing the songs to slow down and express themselves without tiring the listener out.

The production is pretty okay, coming out at a decent DR6, but considering most death metal records back then are usually DR2-4, I'd say it is a job well done for whoever did this at Metal Blade. The songs were mixed to let the song breathe and carefully express themselves, and the bass is pretty prominent too, so that is a plus.

This album is a standout technical/progressive death metal album that anyone interested in the genre should check out, it marks the inclusion of progressive elements that would not take over the band until Where Owls Know My Name where the technical death metal aspects of the band are removed.

Highlights: 'Sand Baptism', 'Monarchy', 'Terrestria II', 'Circles In The Sky+Suntold' (it's another Siamese twin song)

Rating: 9 out of 10