First of all, this is a Nile record. It's not like we're discussing a tribe of untried unknowns, or that any revived organless corpse with a little Google sense would have any trouble finding reams of copy about the band's Relapse-assisted resuscitation of death metal in the late '90s. If Nile makes you hotter than a temple-building slave in the desert at high noon, then go experience "The Inevitable Degradation of the Flesh". This is death metal; either you bow to the brutality or, as band pharaoh Sanders states in the liner notes, you're "ultimately irrelevant".

Another important factor: how do you like your death? From guitar tones to thrash pacing, _At the Gate of Sethu_ sounds less like muscular new-millennium metal ov death and more like mid-period Chuck Schuldiner. Even the vocals veer away from the well-worn underworld growls toward a drier, raspy midrange yell. Some of the deep mystical allure is gone, but incantations that were previously lost to unintelligible grunting are now more readily discerned in full. All told, anyone yearning for the Death logo to exchange its zombie visage for a jackal's head might just have found their record of the year.

It's the tenth hour of night. Do you know where your ibis-carved sarcophagus is?