Karl Sanders is death metal’s resident Egyptologist, having explored the history of pharaohs and the mythology of various gods for more than 30 years with his bombastic tech-death project Nile. This naturally continues through the pyramid-tumbling brutality of the group’s new The Underworld Awaits Us All album, but on another level, the record also arrives significantly more shit-splattered than ever before.
That scatological extremity comes fast and furious on the record’s amazingly-titled first single, “Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes,” one of many songs where Sanders growls out his findings within the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
If the title hadn’t already tipped you off, this one is a terror tale about the fecal punishment being doled out by “the apes who dwelleth beside the lake of fire,” possibly in the name of a dog-faced god of violence named Set. And while this certainly makes for a hellaciously horrifying mental image, there’s also something comically over-the-top about the scenario.
“Maybe the guys who wrote that Chapter of the Book of the Dead really wanted to avoid being hung upside down and made to eat feces in the afterlife. Or maybe those priests and scribes who came up with these texts were secretly having fun getting carried away with their Underworld spells,” Sanders theorizes to Revolver. “When I read that passage, to me it sounded an awful lot like kids being overly dramatic and elaborate about not eating their veggies, or whatever it is they didn’t wanna have to do for eternity.”
While there’s plenty of wisdom to be gained through ancient Egypt’s outlook on life, death and the afterlife, another reason Sanders keeps coming back to the Book of the Dead is that it’s a pretty fun, if extreme, read.
“It seemed to me that if one is going to go to all the trouble of inventing a whole sprawling religious system — and even a Book of the Dead, which is essentially a collection of texts [and] Magickal Spells for navigating the horrors of the Underworld — one might as well make it colorful and entertaining. I think our current crop of Monotheistic religions is pretty lame, by comparison.”
While Nile have honed their craft contemplating Horus and hieroglyphics, Sanders has also gotten his fill of other mythologies through his favorite bands. From Norse God battle anthems, to sea-creature savagery, to spice-obsessed sci-fi world-building, these are Sanders’ top five mythological metal songs.
Septicflesh – “Anubis”
Septicflesh are, for me, the pinnacle of symphonic death metal. I like the live “Anubis” taken from their Infernus Sinfonica MMXIX DVD. Recorded at the Metropolitan Theatre in Mexico City, the whole DVD is an unequaled achievement.
I have been a Septicflesh fan ever since the early days when they were on Holy Records, and I fucking loved their album The Great Mass. They have done quite a bit with Greek mythology, and several times touched on Egyptian mythos, as well — which tracks, because there was quite a bit of cross-cultural connection between the Ancient Greeks and the Ancient Egyptians.
Bathory – “Odens Ride over Nordland”
This track is from Blood Fire Death, and it’s an instrumental. I like it because it’s got an incredible ambiance, and the lack of lyrics somehow makes it even more awesome to me. My brain is free to wander and imagine all sorts of Nordic myths, without the annoying inconvenience of actual song lyrics.
Ahab – “Collossus of the Liquid Graves”
Is “Melville metal” a genre? I don’t know whether or not Ahab qualifies as mythological, but that in no way diminishes their genius. There is no other band that so amazingly and perfectly captures the feeling of the dread of the deep dark seas and the legendary mythological creatures that have terrified man since the earliest times.
Brian Kingsland [Nile guitarist] turned me on to Ahab, and they are fucking brilliant.
Amon Amarth – Everything
One can’t talk about mythological metal without [bringing up] Amon Amarth. Yes, there are lots of bands working with Norse mythology, but these guys go all the way back to ’92.
I first became aware of them with Once Sent from the Golden Hall, but they have a voluminous catalog, making picking any single song as the top fave near-impossible. So, my official answer is “anything thing from Amon Amarth, please argue amongst yourselves while I go get a Tequila.”
Iron Maiden – “To Tame a Land”
Iron Maiden are epic-as-fuck metal. I don’t know if a song born out of Frank Herbert’s Dune is quote-unquote “mythological” either — and we could even debate whether or not an epic work of fiction is the same thing as mythology — but that would not diminish for me the songcraft that is enshrined in “To Tame a Land.”
Musically and lyrically, it’s an incredible song, and it was super inspirational for me as a young metal guitarist. There could be no “Unas Slayer of the Gods” [off Nile’s In Their Darkened Shrines album] without a “To Tame a Land,” or Candlemass’ “Well of Souls,” for that matter.